SU(1,2) Interferometer

Abstract: We theoretically investigate an interferometer composed of four four-wave-mixers by Lie group method. Lie group SU(1,2) characterizes the mode transformations of this kind of interferometer. With vacuum state inputs, the phase sensitivity of SU(1,2) interferometer achieves the Heisenberg limit, and the absolute accuracy beats SU(1,1) interferometer because of higher intensity of light inside the interferometer. For different input cases, the optimal combination of output photon number for detection to obtain the best phase sensitivity is calculated. Our research on SU(1,2) interferometer sheds light on the performance of SU(1,n) interferometer in quantum metrology.