Optimal detection of losses by thermal probes

TL;DR

This paper investigates optimal strategies for detecting losses in bosonic channels using squeezed thermal states, revealing conditions under which two-mode states outperform single-mode states and emphasizing the role of quantum correlations in loss detection.

Contribution

It identifies the optimal input states for loss detection, demonstrating the advantages of two-mode squeezed thermal states and the importance of quantum correlations in enhancing detection performance.

Findings

Two-mode squeezed vacuum states are optimal for certain damping rates.

Two-mode squeezed thermal states outperform single-mode states when thermal photons are directed into the channel.

Quantum correlations improve loss detection as measured by the quantum Chernoff bound.

Abstract

We consider the discrimination of lossy bosonic channels and focus to the case when one of the values for the loss parameter is zero, i.e., we address the detection of a possible loss against the alternative hypothesis of an ideal lossless channel. This discrimination is performed by inputting one-mode or two-mode squeezed thermal states with fixed total energy. By optimizing over this class of states, we find that the optimal inputs are pure, thus corresponding to single- and two-mode squeezed vacuum states. In particular, we show that for any value of the damping rate smaller than a critical value there is a threshold on the energy that makes the two-mode squeezed vacuum state more convenient than the corresponding single-mode state, whereas for damping larger than this critical value two-mode squeezed vacua are always better. We then consider the discrimination in realistic conditions, where it is unlikely to have pure squeezing. Thus by fixing both input energy and squeezing, we show that two-mode squeezed thermal states are always better than their single- mode counterpart when all the thermal photons are directed into the dissipative channel. Besides, this result also holds approximately for unbalanced distribution of the thermal photons. Finally, we also investigate the role of correlations in the improvement of detection. For fixed input squeezing (single-mode or two-mode), we find that the reduction of the quantum Chernoff bound is a monotone function of the two-mode entanglement as well as the quantum mutual information and the quantum discord. We thus verify that employing squeezing in the form of correlations (quantum or classical) is always a resource for loss detection whenever squeezed thermal states are taken as input.