Squeezing as a resource to counteract phase diffusion in optical phase estimation

Abstract: We address a phase estimation scheme using Gaussian states in the presence of non-Gaussian phase noise. At variance with previous analysis, we analyze situations in which the noise occurs before encoding phase information. In particular, we study how squeezing may be profitably used before or after phase diffusion. Our results show that squeezing the probe after the noise greatly enhances the sensitivity of the estimation scheme, as witnessed by the increase of the quantum Fisher information. We then consider a realistic setup where homodyne detection is employed at the measurement stage, and address its optimality as well as its performance in the two different scenarios.