Bayes-optimal detection of TNT content by nuclear quadrupole resonance

Abstract

We study the statistical performance and applicability of a simple quantum state discrimination technique for the analysis of data from nuclear quadrupole resonance experiments on a TNT sample. The target application is remote detection of anti-personnel landmines.We show that, even for data that allows the determination of only one time dependent component of the NQR subsystem, the use of the Bayes optimal detector leads to greatly improved ROC curves with respect to the popular demodulation technique, especially for spin echo signals with a low signal to noise ratio. The method can easily be extended to incorporate results from other sensing modalities and the incorporation of informationally complete measurements that estimate the full density matrix of the NQR subsystem.