Quantum channel position finding using single photons

Abstract: Channel position finding is the task of determining the location of a single target channel amongst an ensemble of background channels. It has many potential applications, including quantum sensing, quantum reading and quantum spectroscopy. In particular, it could allow for simple detection protocols to be extended to ones of measurement, for example, target ranging with quantum illumination. The use of quantum states and entanglement in such protocols have shown to yield quantum advantages over their optimal classical counterparts. Here we consider quantum channel position finding using sources specified by at most one single photon on average per mode, using the discrete variable formalism. By considering various quantum sources it is shown through the derivation of performance bounds that a quantum enhancement may be realised.