Phase Independent Measurement of Weak Coherent Optical Signals

Abstract

We develop a quantum sensing framework for the phase independent detection of weak coherent optical displacements based on SU(1,1) interferometry. Unlike conventional quantum measurement protocols that require prior knowledge of the signal phase and coherent homodyne detection, the proposed approach estimates the displacement magnitude independently of its phase. We show that, under ideal lossless conditions, a conventional SU(1,1) interferometer employing only total intensity detection saturates the quantum Cramer Rao bound for displacement magnitude estimation. We further derive the analytical expression of the quantum Cramer Rao bound and the sensitivity of the conventional SU(1,1) interferometer with total intensity detection and systematically investigate its performance in the presence of optical loss. The proposed phase-independent intensity detection scheme achieves comparable performance over experimentally relevant operating regimes while eliminating the need for local oscillators, phase locking, and quadrature tracking. These results establish SU(1,1) based intensity detection as a practical platform for phase independent quantum sensing.