Quantum-Enhanced Transmittance Sensing

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that quantum illumination with two-mode squeezed vacuum states can asymptotically achieve the lowest possible estimation error for transmittance in noisy environments, outperforming other methods.

Contribution

It proves the optimality of TMSV states for quantum transmittance sensing and characterizes the best receiver structure, advancing quantum sensing techniques.

Findings

TMSV states asymptotically achieve the quantum Cramér-Rao bound.

Optimal receiver structure for TMSV states is characterized.

Quantum illumination outperforms classical methods in low-power regimes.

Abstract

We consider the problem of estimating unknown transmittance $\theta$ of a target bathed in thermal background light. As quantum estimation theory yields the fundamental limits, we employ the lossy thermal-noise bosonic channel model, which describes sensor-target interaction quantum mechanically in many practical active-illumination systems (e.g., using emissions at optical, microwave, or radio frequencies). We prove that quantum illumination using two-mode squeezed vacuum (TMSV) states asymptotically achieves minimal quantum Cram\'{e}r-Rao bound (CRB) over all quantum states (not necessarily Gaussian) in the limit of low transmitted power. We characterize the optimal receiver structure for TMSV input, and show its advantage over other receivers using both analysis and Monte Carlo simulation.