Abstract

The phase estimation performance of photonic $N00N$ states propagating in an attenuating medium is analyzed. It is shown that the Heisenberg limit is never achieved and that an attenuated separable state of N photons will actually produce a better phase estimate than an equally attenuated $N00N$ state unless the transmittance of the medium is sufficiently high. Thus, for most practical applications with realistic attenuation, $N00N$-state-based phase estimation actually performs worse than the standard quantum limit. This performance deficit becomes more pronounced as the number of photons in the signal increases.

© 2008 Optical Society of America

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