Spatial-mode-demultiplexing for enhanced intensity and distance measurement

Abstract: Spatial-mode demultiplexing (SPADE) has recently been adopted to measure the separation in the transverse plane between two incoherent point-like sources. It has been argued that this approach may yield extraordinary performances in the photon-counting regime. Here, we explore SPADE as a tool for precision measurements in the regime of bright, incoherent sources. First we analyse the general problem of estimating the second moments of the source's intensity distribution, for an extended incoherent source of any shape. Second, we present an experimental application of SPADE to the case of two point-like, bright sources. We demonstrate the use of this setup for the estimation of the transverse separation and for the estimation of their relative intensity.