Optimal Conventional Measurements for Quantum-Enhanced Interferometry

TL;DR

This paper shows that optimal phase measurement in quantum-enhanced interferometry can be achieved using three conventional measurements combined with Bayesian estimation, simplifying the path to reaching fundamental precision limits.

Contribution

It identifies conditions under which standard measurements attain quantum Fisher information limits, verified through atomic spectroscopy experiments.

Findings

Conditions for optimal measurement are explicitly derived.

Most interferometric setups naturally satisfy these conditions.

Robustness of phase sensitivity is analyzed under detection noise.

Abstract

A major obstacle to attain the fundamental precision limit of the phase estimation in an interferometry is the identification and implementation of the optimal measurement. Here we demonstrate that this can be accomplished by the use of three conventional measurements among interferometers with Bayesian estimation techniques. Conditions that hold for the precision limit to be attained with these measurements are obtained by explicitly calculating the Fisher information. Remarkably, these conditions are naturally satisfied in most interferometric experiments. We apply our results to an experiment of atomic spectroscopy and examine robustness of phase sensitivity for the two-axis counter-twisted state suffering from detection noise.