Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Volkoff, T. J.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.10071
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Table of Contents:
  • In analyses of target detection with Gaussian state transmitters in a thermal background, the thermal occupation is taken to depend on the target reflectivity in a way which simplifies the analysis of the symmetric quantum hypothesis testing problem. However, this assumption precludes comparison of target detection performance between an arbitrary transmitter and a vacuum state transmitter, i.e., ``detection without illumination'', which is relevant in a bright thermal background because a target can be detected by its optical shadow or some other perturbation of the background. Using a target-agnostic thermal environment leads to the result that the oft-claimed 6 dB possible reduction in the quantum Chernoff exponent for a two-mode squeezed vacuum transmitter over a coherent state transmitter in high-occupation thermal background is an unachievable limiting value, only occurring in a limit in which the target detection problem is ill-posed. Further analyzing quantum illumination in a target-agnostic thermal environment shows that a weak single-mode squeezed transmitter performs worse than ``no illumination'', which is explained by the noise-increasing property of reflected low-intensity squeezed light.