Experimental demonstration of superresolution of partially coherent light sources using parity sorting

Abstract

Analyses based on quantum metrology have shown that the ability to localize the positions of two incoherent point sources can be significantly enhanced over direct imaging through the use of mode sorting. Here we theoretically and experimentally investigate the effect of partial coherence on the sub-diffraction limit localization of two sources based on parity sorting. With the prior information of a negative and real-valued degree of coherence, higher Fisher information is obtained than that for the incoherent case. Our results pave the way to clarifying the role of coherence in quantum-limited metrology.