Digital Discovery of a Scientific Concept at the Core of Experimental Quantum Optics

Entanglement is a crucial resource for quantum technologies ranging from quantum communication to quantum-enhanced measurements and computation. Finding experimental setups for these tasks is a conceptual challenge for human scientists due to the counterintuitive behavior of multiparticle interference and the enormously large combinatorial search space. Recently, new possibilities have been opened by artificial discovery where artificial intelligence proposes experimental setups for the creation and manipulation of high-dimensional multi-particle entanglement. While digitally discovered experiments go beyond what has been conceived by human experts, a crucial goal is to understand the underlying concepts which enable these new useful experimental blueprints. We present Halo (Hyperedge Assembly by Linear Optics), a concept that was used by our digital discovery framework to solve previously open questions. We were able to apply Halo to the generation of highly entangled states, communication in quantum networks, and photonic quantum gates. Our work demonstrates how artificial intelligence can act as a source of inspiration for scientific discovery and how it can be used to formulate new actionable concepts in physics.