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arXiv:1802.02158 · Physical Review A

Minimum error probability of quantum illumination

Giacomo De Palma, Johannes Borregaard

Published Jul 2, 2018• 70 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Quantum illumination is a technique for detecting the presence of a target in a noisy environment by means of a quantum probe. We prove that the two-mode squeezed vacuum state is the optimal probe for quantum illumination in the scenario of asymmetric discrimination, where the goal is to minimize the decay rate of the probability of a false positive with a given probability of a false negative. Quantum illumination with two-mode squeezed vacuum states offers a 6 dB advantage in the error probability exponent compared to illumination with coherent states. Whether more advanced quantum illumination strategies may offer further improvements had been a longstanding open question. Our fundamental result proves that nothing can be gained by considering more exotic quantum states, such as, e.g., multimode entangled states. Our proof is based on a fundamental entropic inequality for the noisy quantum Gaussian attenuators. We also prove that without access to a quantum memory, the optimal probes for quantum illumination are the coherent states.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.98.012101

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Quantum illumination is a technique for detecting the presence of a target in a noisy environment by means of a quantum probe. We prove that the two-mode squeezed vacuum state is the optimal probe for quantum illumination in the scenario of asymmetric discrimination, where the goal is to minimize the decay rate of the probability of a false positive with a given probability of a false negative. Quantum illumination with two-mode squeezed vacuum states offers a 6 dB advantage in the error probability exponent compared to illumination with coherent states. Whether more advanced quantum illumination strategies may offer further improvements had been a longstanding open question. Our fundamental result proves that nothing can be gained by considering more exotic quantum states, such as, e.g., multimode entangled states. Our proof is based on a fundamental entropic inequality for the noisy quantum Gaussian attenuators. We also prove that without access to a quantum memory, the optimal probes for quantum illumination are the coherent states.
Quantum illumination is a quantum sensing protocol primarily used for object detection, which aims to detect the presence of a target with low reflectivity in the free space using quantum light fields. Here we investigate a quantum illumination scheme using an entangled light source by performing non-Gaussian operations on the two-mode squeezed vacuum (TMSV) state in order to reduce the detection error probability and meanwhile improve the signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio. We demonstrate that under the same squeezing parameter, the non-Gaussian operations can significantly reduce the detection error rate compared with the original TMSV state. Under the same average signal photon number, both the TMSV states with and without non-Gaussian operations can provide smaller error rate than that of the coherent state. In addition, we consider the balanced homodyne detection on idler and return signal photons as joint measurement and find that non-Gaussian operations can enhance the SNR of target detection by about 6--9 dB compared with that using TMSV. These results here demonstrate the advantage of the non-Gaussian entangled source in quantum illumination protocol and can find potential applications in target detection in noisy environment.
Quantum illumination is the task of determining the presence of an object in a noisy environment. We determine the optimal continuous-variable states for quantum illumination in the limit of zero object reflectivity. We prove that the optimal single-mode state is a coherent state, while the optimal two-mode state is the two-mode squeezed-vacuum state. We find that these probes are not optimal at nonzero reflectivity, but remain near optimal. This demonstrates the viability of the continuous-variable platform for an experimentally accessible, near optimal quantum illumination implementation.
Quantum illumination is a protocol where quantum resources are utilized to detect a low-reflectivity object embedded in a bright thermal noise bath. For example, quantum illumination with a two-mode squeezed state (TMSS) provides a 6 dB advantage in the error-probability exponent over the optimal classical illumination. We here consider quantum illumination with the photon-subtracted two-mode squeezed state (PSTMSS). Our result is twofold. First, we show that a much smaller error probability Perr{P}_{\mathrm{err}}Perr​ could be obtained, meaning that much smaller resources will be required in quantum illumination for a fixed Perr{P}_{\mathrm{err}}Perr​. Second, quantum illumination with PSTMSS appreciably outperforms its classic correspondence in both low- and high-noise operating regimes, extending the regimes in which quantum illumination is optimal for target detection.
Quantum illumination with asymmetric strategy is examined by making use of the three-mode maximally entangled Gaussian state, which involves one signal and two idler beams. It is shown that this scenario gives less-error probability compared to that with the two-mode squeezed vacuum state when NSN_SNS​, average photon number per signal, is less than 0.460.460.46.
Quantum-enhanced sensing has a goal of enhancing a parameter sensitivity with input quantum states, while quantum illumination has a goal of enhancing a target detection capability with input entangled states in a heavy noise environment. Here we propose a concatenation between quantum-enhanced sensing and quantum illumination that can take quantum advantage over the classical limit. First, phase sensing in an interferometry is connected to a target sensing via quantum Fisher information. Second, the target sensitivity is investigated in noisy quantum-enhanced sensing. Under the same input state energy, for example, NNN-photon entangled states can exhibit better performance than a two-mode squeezed vacuum state and a separable coherent state. Incorporating a photon-number difference measurement, finally, the noisy target sensitivity is connected to a signal-to-noise ratio which is associated with a minimum error probability of discriminating the presence and absence of the target. We show that both the target sensitivity and the signal-to-noise ratio can be enhanced with increasing thermal noise.
Quantum illumination takes advantage of quantum entanglement to achieve low error probability for detecting a low reflective object embedded in a noisy thermal bath. The two-mode squeezed state (TMSS), which is a Gaussian state, has been applied to quantum illumination as the detecting states in experiment. The photon-subtracted TMSS has also been proposed to achieve even lower error probability. Here we study quantum illumination with non-Gaussian states generated by photon subtraction and photon addition. Helstrom limit and quantum Chernoff bound are evaluated for comparison between performance of states with the same squeezing strength and with the same signal strength, respectively. Particularly, states generated by asymmetrical coherent superposition of photon subtraction and addition are studied, which are shown by us to have better performance than symmetrical ones. We show that non-Gaussian operations enhance the quantum illumination by introducing both stronger entanglement and signal strength. We then give a strategy on how to choose the optimal states for the best performance in different scenarios.