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Weak Light Lost Its Phase Lock

An SU(1,1) interferometer estimates displacement magnitude from total intensity without a local oscillator, phase locking or quadrature tracking.

Published Updated Story ID: mp-2026-09-07-012
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Summary

An SU(1,1) interferometer estimates displacement magnitude from total intensity without a local oscillator, phase locking or quadrature tracking.

Conventional weak-signal measurements often need the signal phase in advance and coherent homodyne detection. The proposed method instead estimates magnitude independently of phase. Under ideal lossless conditions, the authors show total-intensity detection reaches the quantum Cramér–Rao bound, then analyze performance under optical loss. They report comparable performance across experimentally relevant regimes. This is a theoretical sensing framework and loss analysis, not a fielded detector.

Why it matters

An SU(1,1) interferometer estimates displacement magnitude from total intensity without a local oscillator, phase locking or quadrature tracking.

Limits and context

  • This is a theoretical sensing framework and loss analysis, not a fielded detector.

Key claims

  1. An SU(1,1) interferometer estimates displacement magnitude from total intensity without a local oscillator, phase locking or quadrature tracking.

    Qualification: This is a theoretical sensing framework and loss analysis, not a fielded detector.

    Evidence: source-2026-09-07-012

Sources

  1. arXiv preprint 2609.04363arXiv · primary research

Corrections

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