The Lindley paradox in optical interferometry

Abstract

The so-called Lindley paradox is a counterintuitive statistical effect where the Bayesian and frequentist approaches to hypothesis testing give radically different answers, depending on the choice of the prior distribution. In this paper we address the occurrence of the Lindley paradox in optical interferometry and discuss its implications for high-precision measurements. In particular, we focus on phase estimation by Mach-Zehnder interferometers and show how to mitigate the conflict between the two approaches by using suitable priors.