Sub-shot-noise-limited phase estimation via SU(1,1) interferometer with thermal states

Enhanced phase sensitivity in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer via photon recycling

We propose an alternative scheme for phase estimation in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with photon recycling. It is demonstrated that with the same coherent-state input and homodyne detection, our proposal possesses a phase sensitivity beyond the traditional MZI. For instance, it can achieve an enhancement factor of ∼9.32 in the phase sensitivity compared with the conventional scheme even with a photon loss of 10% on the photon-recycled arm. From another point of view, the quantum Cramér-Rao bound (QCRB) is also investigated. It is found that our scheme is able to achieve a lower QCRB than the traditional one. Intriguingly, the QCRB of our scheme is dependent of the phase shift ϕ while the traditional scheme has a constant QCRB regardless of the phase shift. Finally, we present the underlying mechanisms behind the enhanced phase sensitivity. We believe that our results provide another angle from which to enhance the phase sensitivity in a MZI via photon recycling.

Phase Sensitivity Improvement in Correlation-Enhanced Nonlinear Interferometers

Interferometers are widely used as sensors in precision measurement. Compared with a conventional Mach–Zehnder interferometer, the sensitivity of a correlation-enhanced nonlinear interferometer can break the standard quantum limit. Phase sensitivity plays a significant role in the enhanced performance. In this paper, we review improvement in phase estimation technologies in correlation-enhanced nonlinear interferometers, including SU(1,1) interferometer and SU(1,1)-SU(2) hybrid interferometer, and so on, and the applications in quantum metrology and quantum sensing networks.

Phase estimation of an SU(1,1) interferometer with a coherent superposition squeezed vacuum in a realistic case

The phase sensitivity of SU(1,1) interferometer is investigated using a coherent state and an m-coherent superposition squeezed vacuum states as inputs and the intensity detection. Photon-subtraction, photon-addition and photon superposition are three special cases. Both ideal and realistic cases are considered. It is shown that the coefficient s of coherent superposition can modulate the performance of phase sensitivity, especially in a small squeezing region. Even in the presence of photon losses, the three-kind of non-Gaussian operations can achieve the improvement of measure precision, and the photon addition presents the best robustness compared to the photon subtraction and coherent superposition. For small squeezing, the first-order non-Gaussian operation may be the most preferred in improving phase sensitivity if considering the limitations of experimental conditions. Our results may be helpful for the practical application of quantum information.

Optimum quantum resource distribution for phase measurement and quantum information tapping in a dual-beam SU(1,1) interferometer

Quantum entanglement is a resource in quantum metrology that can be distributed to two conjugate physical quantities for the enhancement of their measurement sensitivity. This is demonstrated in the joint measurement of phase and amplitude modulation signals in quantum dense metrology schemes. We can also devote all the quantum resource to phase measurement only, leading to the optimum sensitivity enhancement. In this paper, we experimentally implement a dual-beam sensing scheme in an SU(1,1) interferometer for the optimum quantum enhancement of phase measurement sensitivity. We demonstrate a 3.9-dB improvement in signal-to-noise ratio over the optimum classical method, and this is 3-dB better than the traditional single-beam scheme. Furthermore, such as cheme also realizes a quantum optical tap of quantum entangled fields and has the full advantages of an SU(1,1) interferometer, such as detection loss tolerance, making it more suitable for practical applications in quantum metrology and quantum information.

Super-sensitive angular displacement estimation via an SU(1,1)-SU(2) hybrid interferometer

In this paper, we propose a protocol for the estimation of angular displacement based upon orbital angular momentum and an SU(1,1)-SU(2) hybrid interferometer. This interferometer consists of an optical parametric amplifier, a beam splitter, and reflection mirrors; the balanced homodyne detection is used as the detection strategy. The results indicate that super-resolution and super-sensitivity can be achieved with an ideal scenario. Additionally, we study the effect of photon loss on resolution and sensitivity, and the robustness of our protocol is also discussed. Finally, the advantage of our protocol compared with an SU(1,1) protocol is demonstrated, and the merits of orbital angular momentum-enhanced protocol are summarized.