Phase sensitivity with a coherent beam and twin beams via intensity difference detection

Abstract

We focus on the Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with the input of a coherent beam and one of the bright entangled twin beams with an external power reference beam employed for measurement. The results show that the phase sensitivity can reach sub-Heisenberg limit and approach quantum Cramér–Rao bound by changing the squeezing parameters and the photon number of the coherent beam, under the phase-matching condition. The absence of the external power reference beam will degrade the performance of the phase sensitivity. Meanwhile, this scheme shows good robustness against the losses of the photon detectors. We present a detailed discussion about the phase sensitivities when the inputs are two coherent beams, or a coherent beam plus a single-mode squeezed vacuum beam based on the MZI. This scenario can be applied in the field of phase precision measurements and other optical sensors.