Joint estimation of noise and nonlinearity in Kerr systems

We address the characterization of lossy and dephasing channels in the presence of self-Kerr interaction using coherent probes. In particular, we investigate the ultimate bounds to precision in the joint estimation of loss and nonlinearity and of dephasing and nonlinearity. To this aim, we evaluate the quantum Fisher information matrix and compare the symmetric quantum Cramér–Rao bound to the bound obtained with Fisher information matrix of feasible quantum measurements, i.e., homodyne and double-homodyne detection. For lossy Kerr channels, our results show that the loss characterization is enhanced in the presence of Kerr nonlinearity, especially in the relevant limit of small losses and low input energy, whereas the estimation of nonlinearity itself is unavoidably degraded by the presence of loss. In the low energy regime, homodyne detection of a suitably optimized quadrature represents a nearly optimal measurement. The Uhlmann curvature does not vanish; therefore, loss and nonlinearity can be jointly estimated only with the addition of intrinsic quantum noise. For dephasing Kerr channels, the quantum Fisher information of the two parameters is independent of the nonlinearity, and therefore, no enhancement is observed. Homodyne detection and double-homodyne detection are suboptimal for the estimation of dephasing and nearly optimal for nonlinearity. Also in this case, the Uhlmann curvature is nonzero, proving that the parameters cannot be jointly estimated with maximum precision.