Photon-counting statistics-based support vector machine with multi-mode photon illumination for quantum imaging.

We propose a photon-counting-statistics-based imaging process for quantum imaging where background photon noise can be distinguished and eliminated by photon mode estimation from the multi-mode Bose-Einstein distribution. Photon-counting statistics show multi-mode behavior in a practical, low-cost single-photon-level quantum imaging system with a short coherence time and a long measurement time interval. Different mode numbers in photon-counting probability distributions from single-photon illumination and background photon noise can be classified by a machine learning technique such as a support vector machine (SVM).