Optimal Control of Coherent Light Scattering for Binary Decision Problems

Because of quantum noise fluctuations, the rate of error achievable in decision problems involving several possible configurations of a scattering system is subject to a fundamental limit known as the Helstrom bound. Here, we present a general framework to calculate and minimize this bound using coh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 127; no. 25; p. 253902
Main Authors Bouchet, Dorian, Rachbauer, Lukas M, Rotter, Stefan, Mosk, Allard P, Bossy, Emmanuel
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 17.12.2021
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Summary:Because of quantum noise fluctuations, the rate of error achievable in decision problems involving several possible configurations of a scattering system is subject to a fundamental limit known as the Helstrom bound. Here, we present a general framework to calculate and minimize this bound using coherent probe fields with tailored spatial distributions. As an example, we experimentally study a target located in between two disordered scattering media. We first show that the optimal field distribution can be directly identified using a general approach based on scattering matrix measurements. We then demonstrate that this optimal light field successfully probes the presence of the target with a number of photons that is reduced by more than 2 orders of magnitude as compared to unoptimized fields.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.253902