Quantum telescopy with realistic anti-correlated optical fields as references

Quantum telescopy, proposed by Grottesman et al., uses spatially entangled single-photon states to modify HBT stellar interferometry, potentially surpassing Michelson interferometry in resolution without baseline limits. However, finite source bandwidth, non-unit efficiency, detector response times, and celestial light bandwidth all affect its effectiveness. In this work, we consider a spatially entangled singe-photon state generated by beam-splitting a practical anti-bunched photon source from resonance fluorescence, which is a common method of generating single-photon states, and evaluate the signal level in quantum telescopy with inclusion of imperfection of detection system and finite bandwidth of celestial light. Here, given the incoming light, we optimize the parameters of the anti-bunched photon source and the detector system for the best signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which can match that of the Michelson method in the ideal case but is always smaller in the realistic case. Alternatively, weak coherent states from heavily attenuated lasers can replace the entangled single-photon state but suffer low signal level, similar to HBT method. We find that the SNR with a realistic anti-bunched source for producing the reference fields can still beat the SNR of the coherent state scheme in the weak incoming field limit. The optimized parameters for the anti-bunched source and detection system will be a guide for future experimental endeavor.