Semiclassical Theory of Superresolution for Two Incoherent Optical Point Sources

Abstract

Using a semiclassical model of photodetection with Poissonian noise and insights from quantum metrology, we prove that linear optics and photon counting can optimally estimate the separation between two incoherent point sources without regard to Rayleigh's criterion. The model is applicable to weak thermal or fluorescent sources as well as lasers.

v1: 2 pages, submitted to QCMC 2016. v2: An extended version titled "Quantum information for semiclassical optics" has been published in Proc. SPIE but cannot be posted here for copyright reasons. A copy of the published paper can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/mankeitsang/conferences

References in corpus (9)

• The Quantum Chernoff Bound
• Quantum Theory of Superresolution for Two Incoherent Optical Point Sources
• The Chernoff lower bound for symmetric quantum hypothesis testing
• Far-field Superresolution of Thermal Electromagnetic Sources at the Quantum Limit
• Beating Rayleigh's Curse by Imaging Using Phase Information
• Ultimate precision bound of quantum and sub-wavelength imaging
• Interferometric superlocalization of two incoherent optical point sources
• Quantum reconstruction of the mutual coherence function
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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Subdiffraction incoherent optical imaging via spatial-mode demultiplexing
• Quantum limit for two-dimensional resolution of two incoherent optical point sources
• Quantum limit to subdiffraction incoherent optical imaging
• Fundamental precision bounds for three-dimensional optical localization microscopy with Poisson statistics
• Quantum-optimal detection of one-versus-two incoherent optical sources with arbitrary separation
• Quantum-optimal detection of one-versus-two incoherent sources with arbitrary separation
• Comment on "Resurgence of Rayleigh's curse in the presence of partial coherence"
• Conservative classical and quantum resolution limits for incoherent imaging
• Semiparametric estimation for incoherent optical imaging
• Poisson Quantum Information
• Quantum resolution limit of long-baseline imaging using distributed entanglement