Decision Making by Single Photons

NICT, NIMS, Institut NEEL, CNRS and Université Grenoble Alpes demonstrate experimentally that single photons can be used to make decisions in uncertain, dynamically changing environments.

Abstract

The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Institut NEEL, CNRS and Université Grenoble Alpes demonstrate experimentally that single photons can be used to make decisions in uncertain, dynamically changing environments. Using a nitrogen vacancy center in a nanodiamond as a single-photon source, the research demonstrates the decision-making capability by solving the multi-armed bandit problem. This capability is directly and immediately associated with single-photon detection in the proposed architecture, leading to adequate and adaptive autonomous decision making. This study makes it possible to create systems that benefit from the quantum nature of light to perform practical and vital intelligent functions.

The study has been conducted as a joint collaboration by M. Naruse (NICT, Japan), S.-J. Kim (NIMS, Japan), M. Berthel, A. Drezet, S. Huant (Institut NEEL, France), M. Aono (Tokyo Inst. Tech., Japan), and H. Hori (Univ. Yamanashi, Japan).

The study was published in Scientific Reports on August 17, 2015: M. Naruse, M. Berthel, A. Drezet, S. Huant, M. Aono, H. Hori, and S.-J. Kim: Single-photon decision maker, Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/srep13253.

National Institute for Materials Science

#Physics #Photonics #Photons