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  • Open Access

Criteria for optimal entanglement-assisted long baseline telescopy

Yujie Zhang1,2,* and Thomas Jennewein1,3

  • 1Institute for Quantum Computing and Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave West, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada
  • 2Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline Street North, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada
  • 3Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Dr W, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada

  • *Contact author: yujie4physics@gmail.com
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 043278 – Published 10 December, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/bf51-tj3j

Abstract

Entanglement-assisted telescopy protocols have been proposed as a means to extend the baseline of optical interferometric telescopes. However, the optimal entangled resource and a clear optimality criterion have remained unclear. Here, we propose a framework for systematically characterizing entanglement-assisted telescopy by integrating quantum metrology tools with the superselection rule (SSR) framework from quantum information theory. In our approach, the estimation problem in quantum telescopy is rigorously quantified using the quantum Fisher information under SSR constraints. Building on this framework, we derive the fundamental limits of astronomical parameter estimation with finite entanglement resources and introduce protocols that outperform previous methods and asymptotically saturate the optimal bound. Moreover, our proposed protocols are compatible with existing linear-optical technology and could inspire practical quantum telescopy schemes for near-term, lossy, and repeaterless quantum networks.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 043278– Published 10 December, 2025
  • Received 14 April 2025
  • Accepted 17 November 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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