title: Tomography by noise.
abstract: We present an efficient and robust method for the reconstruction of photon number distributions by using solely thermal noise as a probe. The method uses a minimal number of precalibrated quantum devices; only one on-off single-photon detector is sufficient. The feasibility of the method is demonstrated by the experimental inference of single-photon, thermal. and two-photon states. The method is stable to experimental imperfections and provides a direct, user-friendly quantum diagnostics tool.
authors.affiliation: Applied Physics, University of Paderborn, Warburgerstrasse 100, 33098 Paderborn, Germany.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Harder
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics, Belarus National Academy of Sciences, F. Skarina Avenue 68, Minsk 220072 Belarus.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mogilevtsev
authors.affiliation: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews KY16 9SS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Korolkova
authors.affiliation: Applied Physics, University of Paderborn, Warburgerstrasse 100, 33098 Paderborn, Germany and Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Guenther-Scharowsky-Strasse 1/Building 24, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
authors.forename: Ch
authors.initials: Ch
authors.lastname: Silberhorn