Quantum Illumination with Gaussian States

Si-Hui Tan, Baris I. Erkmen, Vittorio Giovannetti, Saikat Guha, Seth Lloyd, Lorenzo Maccone, Stefano Pirandola, and Jeffrey H. Shapiro

Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 253601 – Published 18 December 2008

Abstract

An optical transmitter irradiates a target region containing a bright thermal-noise bath in which a low-reflectivity object might be embedded. The light received from this region is used to decide whether the object is present or absent. The performance achieved using a coherent-state transmitter is compared with that of a quantum-illumination transmitter, i.e., one that employs the signal beam obtained from spontaneous parametric down-conversion. By making the optimum joint measurement on the light received from the target region together with the retained spontaneous parametric down-conversion idler beam, the quantum-illumination system realizes a 6 dB advantage in the error-probability exponent over the optimum reception coherent-state system. This advantage accrues despite there being no entanglement between the light collected from the target region and the retained idler beam.

Received 2 October 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.253601

Authors & Affiliations

Si-Hui Tan¹, Baris I. Erkmen^2,*, Vittorio Giovannetti³, Saikat Guha^2,†, Seth Lloyd², Lorenzo Maccone⁴, Stefano Pirandola², and Jeffrey H. Shapiro^2,‡

¹Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
²Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
³NEST-CNR-INFM & Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza dei Cavalieri 7, I-56126, Pisa, Italy
⁴QUIT, Dipartimento di Fisica “A. Volta,” Universita’ degli studi di Pavia, via Bassi 6, I-27100 Pavia, Italy

^*Present address: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
^†Present address: BBN Technologies, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
^‡jhs@mit.edu

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Issue

Vol. 101, Iss. 25 — 19 December 2008

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