Bell-certified retardance polarimetry from CHSH correlators

Abstract

Bell-CHSH measurements with polarization-entangled photons are commonly used as nonlocality witnesses. Here we show that the same coincidence data can also provide a quantitative metrological certificate for optical retardance sensing. For a local birefringent phase encoded on one photon, we derive the classical Fisher information directly from experimentally accessible CHSH correlators and obtain a lower bound expressed in terms of the measured correlations and the phase derivative of the CHSH parameter. In the unbiased-marginal two-qubit regime, the canonical CHSH analyzer settings are shown to be simultaneously Bell-optimal and Fisher-optimal, saturating the quantum Fisher information for retardance estimation in the ideal case. We further analyze reduced visibility, phase noise, analyzer misalignment, and finite coincidence counts, and construct conservative lower confidence bounds that can be evaluated without quantum-state tomography. The results also clarify that Bell violation and metrological usefulness are distinct resources: nonzero Fisher information can persist below the CHSH-violation threshold. The protocol therefore enables a standard Bell-test data set to provide both a nonlocality benchmark and a statistically controlled sensitivity certificate for quantum polarimetry.