We study what is arguably the most experimentally appealing boson sampling architecture: Gaussian states sampled with threshold detectors. We show that, in this setting, the probability of observing a given outcome is related to a matrix function that we name the Torontonian, which plays an analogous role to the permanent or the Hafnian in other models. We also prove that, provided that the probability of observing two or more photons in a single output mode is sufficiently small, our model remains intractable to simulate classically under standard complexity-theoretic conjectures. Finally, we leverage the mathematical simplicity of the model to introduce a physically motivated, exact sampling algorithm for all boson sampling models that employ Gaussian states and threshold detectors.

• Received 17 July 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.98.062322