Kavli Affiliate: Nergis Mavalvala
| First 5 Authors: Hudson A. Loughlin, Hudson A. Loughlin, , ,
| Summary:
Continuous-wave (CW) interferometry has stood at the frontier of precision
measurement science since its inception, where it was used to search for the
luminiferous ether, to the present day, where it forms the basis of
interferometric gravitational-wave detection. Quantum theory predicts that this
frontier can be expanded more rapidly by employing certain quantum resources,
compared with the case of using only classical resources. In the quantum case,
we can achieve “Heisenberg scaling”, which manifests as a quadratic
improvement over the best possible classical precision scaling. Although
Heisenberg scaling has been demonstrated in pulsed operation, it has not been
demonstrated for continuous operation. The challenge in doing so is two-fold:
continuous measurements capable of Heisenberg scaling were previously unknown,
and the requisite CW quantum states are fragile. Here we overcome these
challenges and demonstrate the first CW interferometer exhibiting resource
efficiency approaching Heisenberg scaling. Our scheme comprises a Mach-Zehnder
interferometer illuminated with a pair of squeezed light sources, followed by a
nonlinear estimator of the output homodyne record to estimate a differential
phase modulation signal that drives the interferometer. We observe that this
signal can be extracted with a precision that scales faster than what is
allowed classically, and approaches the Heisenberg scaling limit.
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