{"paper":{"title":"Fundamental limits of quantum-secure covert optical sensing","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"quant-ph","authors_text":"Animesh Datta, Boulat A. Bash, Christos N. Gagatsos, Saikat Guha","submitted_at":"2017-01-22T18:50:47Z","abstract_excerpt":"We present a square root law for active sensing of phase $\\theta$ of a single pixel using optical probes that pass through a single-mode lossy thermal-noise bosonic channel. Specifically, we show that, when the sensor uses an $n$-mode covert optical probe, the mean squared error (MSE) of the resulting estimator $\\hat{\\theta}_n$ scales as $\\langle (\\theta-\\hat{\\theta}_n)^2\\rangle=\\mathcal{O}(1/\\sqrt{n})$; improving the scaling necessarily leads to detection by the adversary with high probability. We fully characterize this limit and show that it is achievable using laser light illumination and "},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"1701.06206","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}