%0 Journal Article %T Quantum noise in large-scale coherent nonlinear photonic circuits %A Charles Santori %A Jason S. Pelc %A Raymond G. Beausoleil %A Nikolas Tezak %A Ryan Hamerly %A Hideo Mabuchi %J Physics %D 2014 %I arXiv %X A semiclassical simulation approach is presented for studying quantum noise in large-scale photonic circuits incorporating an ideal Kerr nonlinearity. A circuit solver is used to generate matrices defining a set of stochastic differential equations, in which the resonator field variables represent random samplings of the Wigner quasi-probability distributions. Although the semiclassical approach involves making a large-photon-number approximation, tests on one- and two-resonator circuits indicate satisfactory agreement between the semiclassical and full-quantum simulation results in the parameter regime of interest. The semiclassical model is used to simulate random errors in a large-scale circuit that contains 88 resonators and hundreds of components in total, and functions as a 4-bit ripple counter. The error rate as a function of on-state photon number is examined, and it is observed that the quantum fluctuation amplitudes do not increase as signals propagate through the circuit, an important property for scalability. %U http://arxiv.org/abs/1402.5983v2