Optimal States and Almost Optimal Adaptive Measurements for Quantum Interferometry

2000/09/30 by Dominic W. Berry, D. W. Berry, Howard M. Wiseman +1 · 6 citations
Computer Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Algorithm #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Interferometry #Mathematics #Optics #Phase (matter) #Photon #Photon counting #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum mechanics #State (computer science) #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.85.5098

published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 5098 (2000) · 4 pages, 4 figures, journal version

openalex publication_date 2000/12/11 · arxiv created 2002/09/18 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We derive the optimal N-photon two-mode input state for obtaining an estimate straight phi of the phase difference between two arms of an interferometer. For an optimal measurement [B. C. Sanders and G. J. Milburn, Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 2944 (1995)], it yields a variance (Deltastraight phi)(2) approximately pi(2)/N2, compared to O(N-1) or O(N-1/2) for states considered by previous authors. Such a measurement cannot be realized by counting photons in the interferometer outputs. However, we introduce an adaptive measurement scheme that can be thus realized, and show that it yields a variance in straight phi very close to that from an optimal measurement.

Citations

• Interferometric detection of optical phase shifts at the Heisenberg limit

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