Quantum-enhanced Phase Estimation with an Amplified Bell State

Abstract

We propose a phase estimation protocol for optical interferometry that employs a probe state (containing on average n photons) obtained by squeezing each mode, separately, of a single photon path entangled Bell state. This scheme involves a Mach-Zehnder type interferometer for which each mode is squeezed after the first beam splitter. Information about the differential phase is extracted using a parity detection and the resulting measurement signal is super-resolving and supersensitive, with a minimum phase uncertainty 2/(n+1). This probe state can be generated with current technologies where n is in the order of many thousands of photons.