Linear quantum optics is advancing quickly, driven by sources of correlated photon pairs. Multi-photon sources beyond pairs would be a powerful resource, but are a difficult technology to implement. We have discovered a way in which we can combine multiple pair-sources to act analogous to sources of four, six or even eight correlated photons for the creation of highly entangled quantum states and other quantum information tasks. The existence of such setups is interesting from a conceptual perspective, but also offers a useful abstraction for the construction of more complicated photonic experiments, ranging from state generation to complex quantum networks. We show that even just going from probabilistic two-photon sources to effective four-photon sources allows conceptually new experiments for which no other building principles were known before. The setups which inspired the formulation of these abstract building blocks were discovered by a computer algorithm that can efficiently design quantum optics experiments. Our manuscript demonstrates how artificial intelligence can act as a source of inspiration for the scientific discoveries of new ideas and concepts in physics.

中文翻译：

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使用对源模拟多粒子发射器：量子光学构建块的数字发现


线性量子光学在相关光子对源的驱动下迅速发展。超出成对的多光子源将是一种强大的资源，但是一项难以实现的技术。我们发现了一种方法，我们可以将多个成对源组合在一起，类似于 4 个、6 个甚至 8 个相关光子的源，用于创建高度纠缠的量子态和其他量子信息任务。从概念的角度来看，这种设置的存在很有趣，但也为构建更复杂的光子实验提供了一个有用的抽象，范围从状态生成到复杂的量子网络。我们表明，即使只是从概率双光子源到有效的四光子源，也可以在概念上进行以前不知道其他建筑原理的新实验。激发这些抽象构建块公式的设置是由一种可以有效设计量子光学实验的计算机算法发现的。我们的手稿展示了人工智能如何成为物理学中新思想和概念的科学发现的灵感来源。