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Approaching quantum-limited phase tracking with a large photon flux in a fiber Mach–Zehnder interferometer

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Abstract

The real-time phase tracking has a large number of applications in the precise measurement of various physical parameters. The classical limit of fiber phase tracking has been realized with homodyne detection under a low photon flux (typically ~ 106 s−1). However, it is still difficult to approach the coherent state limit when measuring a weak phase fluctuation in real time by using a larger photon flux. In this work, we propose a fiber Mach–Zehnder system and experimentally demonstrate a nearly quantum-limited phase tracking with mean photon numbers of \(\sim3.7 \times 10^{10}\) s−1. In the experiment, the input state is a continuous-mode coherent state and an adaptive Kalman filter is used to construct a phase-locked loop. We effectively track a very weak random phase varying between  − 0.07 and + 0.07 radians, and the minimum mean-squared error is optimized to \(2.5 \times 10^{ - 5}\) which approaches the coherent state limit. Our method has potentially applications for fiber-based real-time sensing and measurements.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Hidehiro Yonezawa, Lisheng Chen and Liufeng Li for illuminating discussions on this work. This research was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFA0303703), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (021314380105), and the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61605072, 61771236,).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 211816, China

    Fang Liu, Liu Wang, YuChang Liu & Xiang Li

  2. National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and School of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China

    Kaimin Zheng, Chuan Xu, Lidan Zhang, TianXin Wang, Lijian Zhang, Yong Zhang & Min Xiao

  3. Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, 72701, USA

    Min Xiao

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Liu, F., Zheng, K., Wang, L. et al. Approaching quantum-limited phase tracking with a large photon flux in a fiber Mach–Zehnder interferometer. Quantum Inf Process 20, 164 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11128-021-03097-x

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