Quantum metrology with imperfect states and detectors

Journal Article · Wed Jun 15 04:00:00 EDT 2011 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.83.063836· OSTI ID:21550217

Datta, Animesh; Lijian, Zhang; Thomas-Peter, Nicholas; Smith, Brian J; Walmsley, Ian A ^[1]; Dorner, Uwe ^[2]

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1. Clarendon Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, OX1 3PU (United Kingdom)
2. Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 2, 117543 Singapore (Singapore)

Quantum enhancements of precision in metrology can be compromised by system imperfections. These may be mitigated by appropriate optimization of the input state to render it robust, at the expense of making the state difficult to prepare. In this paper, we identify the major sources of imperfection of an optical sensor: input state preparation inefficiency, sensor losses, and detector inefficiency. The second of these has received much attention; we show that it is the least damaging to surpassing the standard quantum limit in a optical interferometric sensor. Further, we show that photonic states that can be prepared in the laboratory using feasible resources allow a measurement strategy using photon-number-resolving detectors that not only attain the Heisenberg limit for phase estimation in the absence of losses, but also deliver close to the maximum possible precision in realistic scenarios including losses and inefficiencies. In particular, we give bounds for the tradeoff between the three sources of imperfection that will allow true quantum-enhanced optical metrology

• OSTI ID: 21550217
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 83; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ACCURACY
BOSONS
EFFICIENCY
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
EQUIPMENT
INTERFEROMETRY
MASSLESS PARTICLES
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
MEASURING METHODS
MECHANICS
OPTICAL EQUIPMENT
OPTIMIZATION
PHOTONS
QUANTUM EFFICIENCY
QUANTUM MECHANICS
RADIATION DETECTORS
SENSORS