Fisher information plays a central role in statistics and quantum metrology, providing the basis for the celebrated Cramér-Rao bound. In this work, we introduce a new information measure based on higher-order Fisher information and show that it naturally leads to a generalized uncertainty relation for parameter estimation, which can be regarded as an extension of the Cramér-Rao bound. As an application, we analyze the case of quantum phase estimation with a single qubit and compare our theoretical bounds with the well-known established hierarchical bounds. Finally, we experimentally validate the proposed framework using a photonic platform.
For a quantum state and a set of observables, we can construct an associated covariance matrix and a natural quantum Fisher information matrix. These two matrices characterize the uncertainty and information content of the observables in the relevant state. An inequality between these two matrices is established. This inequality may be interpreted as a general quantification of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle from a statistical estimation perspective. In particular, it implies a new uncertainty relation which refines the celebrated Schrödinger uncertainty relation.
Phase measurements on a single-mode radiation field are examined from a system-theoretic viewpoint. Quantum estimation theory is used to establish the primacy of the Susskind-Glogower (SG) phase operator; its phase eigenkets generate the probability operator measure (POM) for maximum likelihood phase estimation. A commuting observables description for the SG-POM on a signal x apparatus state space is derived. It is analogous to the signal-band x image-band formulation for optical heterodyne detection. Because heterodyning realizes the annihilation operator POM, this analogy may help realize the SG-POM. The wave function representation associated with the SG POM is then used to prove the duality between the phase measurement and the number operator measurement, from which a number-phase uncertainty principle is obtained, via Fourier theory, without recourse to linearization. Fourier theory is also employed to establish the principle of number-ket causality, leading to a Paley-Wiener condition that must be satisfied by the phase-measurement probability density function (PDF) for a single-mode field in an arbitrary quantum state. Finally, a two-mode phase measurement is shown to afford phase-conjugate quantum communication at zero error probability with finite average photon number. Application of this construct to interferometric precision measurements is briefly discussed.
Dispersion and peak likelihood---two performance measures recently used for the description of quantum phase---are compared in this Rapid Communication. The Susskind-Glogower phase operator represents the extremal quantum estimator with respect to both measures. The states with infinite peak likelihood and zero phase information explicitly demonstrate that peak likelihood is not relevant to the phase measurement, whereas dispersion represents a well-behaved performance measure of the phase variable. Peak likelihood restricts the lower limit of the variance of photon number, and the above-mentioned states represent the extremal states of the Shapiro-Shepard [Phys. Rev. A 43, 3795 (1991)] uncertainty relation.
It is shown that there exist two kinds of operational (or measured) phase operators, those of the Hradil type [Phys. Rev. A 47 (1993), 4532], defined on the entire Hilbert space, and those of the Noh-Fougères-Mandel type [Phys. Rev. A 45 (1992), 424], defined only on a subspace. As a consequence, strictly speaking, the Noh-Fougères-Mandel measured phase cannot be defined in the case of, for example, coherent states, squeezed states and the vacuum. The difference between these operators is made clear by using the concept of the Bargmann distance between a quantum state and its “reduced” state. Since Noh et al. did not use the correct variances of the Susskind-Glogower and Pegg-Barnett phase operators when they compared their data with the results predicted through use of these operators, the correct expressions in that case are presented. Comparing the measured operators with the Hermitian phase operator in the extended Susskind-Glogower formalism, we show that the quantum phase given by the Hermitian phase operator is more appropriate than the measured phases. The variance of the Hermitian operator in the vacuum is consistent with the complementarity of the photon number and phase, which implies that the vacuum has a uniform phase distribution. Hradil's measured operator does not have such a property. Although the Noh-Fougères-Mandel operator has such a property in a particular limit, this operator does not represent, in principle, a meaningful measure of the phase measurement in a typical quantum region, because the Bargmann distance becomes large in such a region.
The measurement of a phase difference between two optical modes in an interferometer has several important applications in metrology. This measurement can be useful in several contexts, such as in the detection of gravitational waves. The quantum nature of light imposes a limit on how accurately a phase difference can be measured, this limit being known as the Heisenberg limit (HL). On the other hand, photonic quantum metrology studies alternatives to reach the HL through entangled or squeezed quantum states. According to the theory of parameter estimation, the minimum uncertainty possible in the estimation of a phase
θ considering classical light scales with $1/\sqrt{\Bar{N}}$, where $\Bar{N}$ is the average number of photons. This dependence is known as the standard quantum limit. However, when considering quantum light sources, there is a significant improvement in the estimation of the phase parameter, as its minimum uncertainty can scale with $1/{\Bar{N}}$, known as HL. In this thesis, starting from the relative phase probability distribution P(
ϕ) introduced by Luis and S\'anchez-Soto in 1996, we obtained this distribution for several quantum states of light useful in photonic quantum metrology. We show that, within the numerical precision of our calculations, the Fisher information obtained via the relative phase distribution is equal to the quantum Fisher information for the considered states, such that the average differences between these quantities were on the order of
0,1%. Our results indicate that the relative phase distribution can be used to predict the minimum possible uncertainty in the phase detection process in quantum metrology, since this uncertainty depends on the quantum Fisher information, at least for pure states.