Discrimination of binary coherent states using a homodyne detector and a photon number resolving detector
- Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Guenther-Scharowsky-Strasse 1, Bau 24, 91058 Erlangen (Germany)
- National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), 4-2-1 Nukui-kitamachi, Koganei, Tokyo 184-8795 (Japan)
We investigate quantum measurement strategies capable of discriminating two coherent states probabilistically with significantly smaller error probabilities than can be obtained using nonprobabilistic state discrimination. We apply a postselection strategy to the measurement data of a homodyne detector as well as a photon number resolving detector in order to lower the error probability. We compare the two different receivers with an optimal intermediate measurement scheme where the error rate is minimized for a fixed rate of inconclusive results. The photon number resolving (PNR) receiver is experimentally demonstrated and compared to an experimental realization of a homodyne receiver with postselection. In the comparison, it becomes clear that the performance of the PNR receiver surpasses the performance of the homodyne receiver, which we prove to be optimal within any Gaussian operations and conditional dynamics.
- OSTI ID:
- 21437865
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. A, Vol. 81, Issue 6; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.81.062338; (c) 2010 The American Physical Society; ISSN 1050-2947
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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