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arXiv:2606.25666

Quantum Detectability in Invisibility Cloaks

Mohammad Mehdi Sadeghi

quant-phphysics.opticsSubmitted Jun 24, 2026• Announced Jun 25, 2026• 0 citations

Abstract

Classical invisibility cloaks are designed to suppress selected scattering signatures and thereby make an object appear absent to external electromagnetic probes. However, the suppression of a classical scattering observable does not, by itself, establish that all information about the concealed object has been removed from the detected quantum state of light. Here we formulate the detectability of classically cloaked objects as a quantum-state distinguishability problem. Treating a linear passive cloak as an effective Gaussian quantum channel acting on the accessible detected modes, we show that local quantum undetectability requires the detected first and second moments to be independent of the hidden-object parameter. In this framework, quantum Fisher information provides an operational criterion for whether the concealed parameter remains estimable from the detected output state. We derive displacement- and covariance-level detectability conditions and show that a nonzero parameter imprint surviving in the detected Gaussian state leads to a nonzero accessible quantum Fisher information. To connect the criterion with a physical cloaking model, we analyze a regularized cylindrical transformation-optical cloak in the Born limit and compare the scaling of the classical scattering response with the derivative-based quantum sensitivity. The analysis shows that reducing a scattering amplitude is not equivalent to eliminating local quantum-state sensitivity. Loss, environmental noise, and finite numerical aperture degrade the accessible information, but quantum undetectability is reached only when the parameter imprint is removed from the detected state or projected entirely outside the accessible subspace. These results provide a Gaussian-channel framework for assessing when classical cloaking does, and does not, imply quantum-state undetectability.

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Classical invisibility cloaks are designed to suppress selected scattering signatures and thereby make an object appear absent to external electromagnetic probes. However, the suppression of a classical scattering observable does not, by itself, establish that all information about the concealed object has been removed from the detected quantum state of light. Here we formulate the detectability of classically cloaked objects as a quantum-state distinguishability problem. Treating a linear passive cloak as an effective Gaussian quantum channel acting on the accessible detected modes, we show that local quantum undetectability requires the detected first and second moments to be independent of the hidden-object parameter. In this framework, quantum Fisher information provides an operational criterion for whether the concealed parameter remains estimable from the detected output state. We derive displacement- and covariance-level detectability conditions and show that a nonzero parameter imprint surviving in the detected Gaussian state leads to a nonzero accessible quantum Fisher information. To connect the criterion with a physical cloaking model, we analyze a regularized cylindrical transformation-optical cloak in the Born limit and compare the scaling of the classical scattering response with the derivative-based quantum sensitivity. The analysis shows that reducing a scattering amplitude is not equivalent to eliminating local quantum-state sensitivity. Loss, environmental noise, and finite numerical aperture degrade the accessible information, but quantum undetectability is reached only when the parameter imprint is removed from the detected state or projected entirely outside the accessible subspace. These results provide a Gaussian-channel framework for assessing when classical cloaking does, and does not, imply quantum-state undetectability.

As a probe to explore the ability of invisibility cloaks to conceal objects in the quantum mechanics domain, we study the spontaneous emission rate of an excited two-level atom in the vicinity of an ideal invisibility cloaking. On this base, first, a canonical quantization scheme is presented for the electromagnetic field interacting with atomic systems in an anisotropic, inhomogeneous and absorbing magnetodielectric medium which can suitably be used for studying the influence of arbitrary invisibility cloak on the atomic radiative properties. The time dependence of the atomic subsystem is obtained in the Schrodinger picture. By introducing a modified set of the spherical wave vector functions, the Green tensor of the system is calculated via the continuous and discrete methods. In this formalism, the decay rate and as well the emission pattern of the aforementioned atom are computed analytically for both weak and strong coupling interaction, and then numerically calculations are done to demonstrate the performances of cloaking in the quantum mechanics domain. Special attention is paid to different possible orientations and locations of atomic system near the spherical invisibility cloaking. Results in the presence and the absence of the invisibility cloak are compared. We find that the cloak works very well far from its resonance frequency to conceal a macroscopic object, whereas at near the resonance frequency the object is more visible than the situation that the object is not covered by the cloak.

As a probe to explore the ability of invisibility cloaks to conceal objects in the quantum mechanics domain, we study the spontaneous emission rate of an excited two-level atom in the vicinity of an ideal invisibility cloaking. On this base, first, a canonical quantization scheme is presented for the electromagnetic field interacting with atomic systems in an anisotropic, inhomogeneous, and absorbing magnetodielectric medium which can suitably be used for studying the influence of arbitrary invisibility cloak on the atomic radiative properties. The time dependence of the atomic subsystem is obtained in the Schrodinger picture. By introducing a modified set of the spherical wave-vector functions, the Green tensor of the system is calculated via exact and discrete methods. In this formalism, the decay rate and as well the emission pattern of the aforementioned atom are computed analytically for both weak and strong coupling interaction, and then numerically calculations are done to demonstrate the performances of cloaking in the quantum mechanics domain. Special attention is paid to different possible orientations and locations of the atomic system near the spherical invisibility cloaking. Results in the presence and the absence of the invisibility cloak are compared. We find that the cloak works very well far from its resonance frequency to conceal a macroscopic object, whereas at near the resonance frequency the object is more visible than the situation where the object is not covered by the cloak.

We study the entanglement between two identical two-level atoms located near an ideal model of invisibility cloaks by monitoring the time evolution of the concurrence measure. We obtain the reduced density operator of the atomic subsystem based on a canonical quantization scheme presented for the electromagnetic field interacting with atomic systems in the presence of an anisotropic, inhomogeneous, and absorbing magnetodielectric medium. It is shown that two atoms, which are prepared initially in an unentangled state, are correlated in the weak coupling regime via the spontaneous emission and the dipole-dipole interaction of two atoms mediated by the invisibility cloak. We therefore find that the invisibility cloak, independent of the hidden object, works fairly well at frequencies far from the resonance frequency of the object and the cloak, whereas near the resonance frequency the hidden object becomes detectable due to a sharp reduction of the concurrence.

Famously, the quantum Fisher information -- the maximum Fisher information over all physical measurements -- is additive for independent copies of a system and the optimal measurement acts locally. We are left to wonder: does the same hold when the set of accessible measurements is constrained? Such constraints are necessary to account for realistic experimental restrictions. Here, we consider a fully Gaussian scenario focusing on only Gaussian measurements. We prove that the optimal Gaussian measurement protocol remains local, if the information is encoded in either the displacement or the covariance matrix. However, when the information is imprinted on both, this no longer holds true: we construct a simple global Gaussian measurement where the Fisher information becomes super additive. These results can improve parameter estimation tasks via feasible tools. Namely, in quantum optical platforms our proposed global operation requires only passive global operations and single mode Gaussian measurements. We demonstrate this in two examples where we estimate squeezing and losses. While in the former case there is a significant gap between the Fisher information of the optimal Gaussian measurement and the quantum Fisher information for a single copy, this gap can be reduced with joint Gaussian measurements and closed in the asymptotic limit of many copies.

Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is a powerful mechanism for distributed sensing in optical fibers, as the Brillouin response is highly sensitive to local material parameters. Assuming the input probe is a quantum state, we develop a quantum-information-theoretic framework for SBS-based fiber sensing and intrusion detection. Starting from a linearized opto-acoustic Hamiltonian, we derive an effective input-output relation for a short fiber segment. We then model each fiber segment as a single-mode bosonic Gaussian channel and the entire fiber as a cascade of quantum channels. We then compute the quantum Fisher information for general SBS-dependent parameters and identify optimal measurement settings to achieve the quantum limit, comparing them with receiver-constrained strategies such as heterodyne detection and photon counting. In addition, we propose an adaptive approach that achieves first-order asymptotic optimality and provides a novel second-order correction to address preliminary miscalibration. As an application, we apply the framework to the fiber-tapping detection problem.

Quantum illumination (QI) leverages entangled lights to detect the presence of low-reflectivity objects within a thermal environment. In a related vein, quantum parameter estimation utilizes nonclassical probes to precisely determine unknown system parameters. Although both fields have been studied extensively, their performances have traditionally been assessed using different figures of merit: signal-to-noise ratio for QI and quantum Fisher information for parameter estimation. In this paper, we reveal the intrinsic connection between these two measures in the context of target detection, thereby providing explicit operational criteria for identifying optimal measurements. We further apply this relationship to various target detection protocols that employ exotic non-Gaussian states derived from coherent states and two-mode squeezed vacuum states.