Quantum Limits of Blind Superresolution Imaging
Abstract
Quantum estimation has shown that spatial-mode measurements can avoid Rayleigh's curse, but the fundamental precision limits are usually formulated for a known point-spread function (PSF). We show that, for two equally bright incoherent sources sharing an unknown static, shift-invariant complex-amplitude response, the local quantum information for separation is exactly the same as in the known-PSF case. In a quantum semiparametric formulation, the equality follows from the orthogonality of the separation score to the nuisance tangent space generated by all admissible PSF perturbations. We propose two receivers to access this information: momentum-resolved Hong--Ou--Mandel interference (MR-HOM), which acquires half the small-separation quantum information per signal photon without reconstructing the PSF, and a tomography-assisted symmetric logarithmic derivative receiver (TA-SLD), which asymptotically attains the full bound under explicit recovery conditions. These results provide a route toward blind superresolution without prior PSF calibration in microscopy, astronomy, and other optical imaging systems with uncertain responses.
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BibTeX
@misc{lian2026quantum,
title = {{Quantum Limits of Blind Superresolution Imaging}},
author = {Qiushuang Lian and Jun Zhu and Liangcai Cao},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.28089},
eprint = {2610.28089},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.28089},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Quantum Limits of Blind Superresolution Imaging
AU - Qiushuang Lian
AU - Jun Zhu
AU - Liangcai Cao
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/20
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.28089
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.28089
AB - Quantum estimation has shown that spatial-mode measurements can avoid Rayleigh's curse, but the fundamental precision limits are usually formulated for a known point-spread function (PSF). We show that, for two equally bright incoherent sources sharing an unknown static, shift-invariant complex-amplitude response, the local quantum information for separation is exactly the same as in the known-PSF case. In a quantum semiparametric formulation, the equality follows from the orthogonality of the separation score to the nuisance tangent space generated by all admissible PSF perturbations. We propose two receivers to access this information: momentum-resolved Hong--Ou--Mandel interference (MR-HOM), which acquires half the small-separation quantum information per signal photon without reconstructing the PSF, and a tomography-assisted symmetric logarithmic derivative receiver (TA-SLD), which asymptotically attains the full bound under explicit recovery conditions. These results provide a route toward blind superresolution without prior PSF calibration in microscopy, astronomy, and other optical imaging systems with uncertain responses.
ER -