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PreprintarXiv licencearXiv

Optical measurement is almost quantum: Quantum inspired universal optical bounds

  • Daniel Ish
  • Chase T. Ellis
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Abstract

Inspired by results in quantum information, we report the development of a formalism for optical sensing which abstracts the details of specific optical systems and allows us to form general bounds on measurement based only on the quantity to be measured. We find a universal bound that controls the performance of any passive optical system regardless of the technology used to construct it and that this bound is attained by a unique measurement scheme for each quantity of interest. Shockingly, our optical formalism is nearly identical to the quantum formalism, with essentially the same notions of the state to be measured and the operation of the measurement, along with an accompanying uncertainty principle.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@misc{ish2026optical,
  title = {{Optical measurement is almost quantum: Quantum inspired universal optical bounds}},
  author = {Daniel Ish and Chase T. Ellis},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.39857},
  eprint = {2609.39857},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.39857},
}
RIS
TY  - UNPB
TI  - Optical measurement is almost quantum: Quantum inspired universal optical bounds
AU  - Daniel Ish
AU  - Chase T. Ellis
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/30
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.39857
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.39857
AB  - Inspired by results in quantum information, we report the development of a formalism for optical sensing which abstracts the details of specific optical systems and allows us to form general bounds on measurement based only on the quantity to be measured. We find a universal bound that controls the performance of any passive optical system regardless of the technology used to construct it and that this bound is attained by a unique measurement scheme for each quantity of interest. Shockingly, our optical formalism is nearly identical to the quantum formalism, with essentially the same notions of the state to be measured and the operation of the measurement, along with an accompanying uncertainty principle.
ER  -