Effects of coherence on temporal resolution

Abstract

Measuring small separations between two optical sources, either in space or in time, constitutes an important metrological challenge as standard intensity-only measurements fail for vanishing separations. Contrarily, it has been established that appropriate coherent mode projections can appraise arbitrarily small separations with quantum-limited precision. However, the question of whether the optical coherence brings any metrological advantage to mode projections is still a point of debate. Here, we elucidate this problem by experimentally investigating the effect of varying coherence on estimating the temporal separation between two single-photon pulses. We show that, for an accurate interpretation, special attention must be paid to properly normalize the quantum Fisher information to account for the strength of the signal.