Fundamental quantum limits in optical metrology from rate-distortion theory

Abstract

We derive fundamental lower bounds on the performance of optical metrology and communication systems in a Bayesian framework. The derivation uses classical rate-distortion theory in conjunction with bounds on the capacity to transmit classical information of various optical channels specified by the system design. The bounds are expressed in terms of the system parameters, the prior probability distribution of the parameter, and the average energy, i.e., number of photons $E$ in the probe state. For phase estimation, the bounds pertain to a cyclic mean squared error criterion incorporating the cyclic nature of the phase. In the absence of optical loss, our bounds are applicable to multimode linear phase modulation schemes (including ancilla-assisted ones), and to nonlinear modulations on a single mode. The bounds display inverse-quadratic Heisenberg-limit scaling of the cyclic mean square error with respect to $E$. In the presence of any finite amount of loss, a lower bound on ancilla-assisted phase estimation with standard-quantum-limit (SQL) scaling is derived, which is shown to be little different from a similar bound for coherent-state probes. For systems involving a single optical mode, we also obtain lower bounds on the mean squared error of estimating any classical parameter, and on the average error probability of any $M$-ary communication system under an average energy constraint. The bounds are valid for arbitrary quantum measurements, for any prior probability distribution, and do not rely on unbiasedness assumptions.