Multi-outcome homodyne detection in a coherent-state light interferometer

Abstract

The Cram\'{e}r-Rao bound plays a central role in both classical and quantum parameter estimation, but finding the observable and the resulting inversion estimator that saturates this bound remains an open issue for general multi-outcome measurements. Here we consider multi-outcome homodyne detection in a coherent-light Mach-Zehnder interferometer and construct a family of inversion estimators that almost saturate the Cram\'{e}r-Rao bound over the whole range of phase interval. This provides a clue on constructing optimal inversion estimators for phase estimation and other parameter estimation in any multi-outcome measurement.