Quantum disentanglement and phase measurements

A 5050 beam splitter disentangles a two-mode squeezed vacuum state into two single-mode squeezed vacuum states. With the proper choice of parameters these two single-mode states will be identical. If one is passed through a device which shifts its phase, then the phases of the shifted and reference (unshifted) modes can be determined by the Vogel-Schleich technique Phys. Rev. A44 (1991) 7642]. In this way the phase difference, i.e. the phase shift, can be measured to an accuracy of 1/N, whereN is the total number of photons coming into the beam splitter. We also propose an improved scheme involving the disentanglement of a shifted two-mode squeezed vacuum state. This leads to two shifted squeezed vacaum states at the output of the beam splitter. If one of these is passed through the phase shifter, then by performing homodyne measurements on the shifted and unshifted modes the phase shift can again be determined to an accuracy of 1/N.This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under grants INT-9221716 and PHY-9201912.