Fast remote spectral discrimination through ghost spectrometry

Assessing the presence of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats is a crucial task which is usually dealt with in spectroscopic measurements by analyzing the presence of spectral features in a measured absorption profile. The use of quantum ghost spectroscopy opens up the enticing perspective to perform these measurements remotely without compromising the measurement accuracy. However, in order to have the necessary signal-to-noise ratio, long acquisition times are typically required, hence subtracting from the benefits provided by remote sensing. In many instances, though, reconstructing the full spectral lineshape of an object is not needed and the interest lies in ascertaining the presence of a spectrally absorbing object. Here, we present an experimental investigation on the employ of the hypothesis testing framework to obtain a fast and accurate discrimination, carried out by ghost spectrometry. We discuss the experimental results obtained with different samples and complement them with simulations to explore the most common scenarios.