Active Hypothesis Testing for Quantum Detection of Phase-Shift Keying Coherent States

Abstract: This paper explores the quantum detection of Phase-Shift Keying (PSK)-coded coherent states through the lens of active hypothesis testing, focusing on a Dolinar-like receiver with constraints on displacement amplitude and energy. With coherent state slicing, we formulate the problem as a controlled sensing task in which observation kernels have parameters shrinking with sample size. The constrained open-loop error exponent and a corresponding upper bound on the Bayesian error probability are proven. Surprisingly, the exponent-optimal open-loop policy for binary PSK with high dark counts is not simply time-sharing. This work serves as a first step towards obtaining analytical insights through the active hypothesis testing framework for designing resource-constrained quantum communication receivers.