Phase sensitivity and entanglement of superposition coherent states in Mach–Zehnder interferometer

Abstract

In this paper, we mainly focus on analyzing the fidelity, parity measurement, phase sensitivity and entanglement properties of the output states corresponding to three quantum superposition coherent states, i.e. even coherent state (ECS), Yurke-Stoler state (YSS) and odd coherent state (OCS). Our results show that the OCS characterizes super-resolution in the phase measurement via parity measurement at the output ports of a Mach–Zehnder interferometer. In addition, we find that the optimal phase sensitivity may approach the Heisenberg limit which is independent of the superposition coefficient of the coherent states. An interesting finding is that the macroscopically entangled coherent states can be experimentally prepared by adjusting the parameters of the nonlinear phase shifter of the MZI.