  State transfer and photon detection are fundamental processes that have
direct implications in fields such as quantum computing and photonic circuits.
However, while naturally emitted photons decay exponentially in time, to
perfectly capture a photon its envelope should increase exponentially to match
the time-reversed response of the absorbing cavity. Here we show that a cavity
at a virtual absorbing exceptional point captures additional temporal orders of
an incoming waveform, resulting in efficient passive state transfer and photon
detection. This approach paves the way for state transfer at optical
frequencies and efficient detection of a spontaneously emitted photon.
