The measurement problem for the optical phase has been traditionally attacked for noiseless schemes or in the presence of amplitude or detection noise. Here we address the estimation of phase in the presence of phase diffusion and evaluate the ultimate quantum limits to precision for phase-shifted Gaussian states. We look for the optimal detection scheme and derive approximate scaling laws for the quantum Fisher information and the optimal squeezing fraction in terms of the total energy and the amount of noise. We also find that homodyne detection is a nearly optimal detection scheme in the limit of very small and large noise.

• Received 12 December 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.153603