Ultimate sensitivity of precision measurements with intense Gaussian quantum light: A multimodal approach

Multimode Gaussian quantum light, which includes multimode squeezed and multipartite quadrature entangled light, is a very general and powerful quantum resource with promising applications in quantum information processing and metrology. In this paper, we determine the ultimate sensitivity in the estimation of any parameter when the information about this parameter is encoded in such light when the mean photon number is large, irrespective of the information extraction protocol used in the estimation and of the measured observable. In addition, we show that an appropriate homodyne detection scheme allows us to reach this ultimate sensitivity. We show that, for a given set of available quantum resources, the most economical way to maximize the sensitivity is to put the most squeezed state available in a well-defined light mode. This implies that it is not possible to take advantage of the existence of squeezed fluctuations in other modes, nor of quantum correlations and entanglement between different modes.

Figure 1

General scheme for estimating light parameters.