A robust hybrid receiver for binary phase-shift keying discrimination in the presence of phase noise

Abstract

We address the problem of coherent state discrimination in the presence of phase diffusion. We investigate the role of the hybrid near-optimum receiver (HYNORE) we proposed in [J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 40, 705-714 (2023)] in the task of mitigating the noise impact. We prove the HYNORE to be a robust receiver, outperforming the displacement photon-number-resolving (DPNR) receiver and beating the standard quantum limit in particular regimes. We introduce the maximum tolerable phase noise $\sigma_{\mathrm{max}}$ as a figure of merit for the receiver robustness and show that HYNORE increases its value with respect to the DPNR receiver.