American Physical Society, Physical Review A, 5(89), 2014
DOI: 10.1103/physreva.89.053822
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We derive a general expression of the quantum Fisher information for a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, with the port inputs of an \emph{arbitrary} pure state and a squeezed thermal state. We find that the standard quantum limit can be beaten, when even or odd states are applied to the pure-state port. In particular, when the squeezed thermal state becomes a thermal state, all the even or odd states have the same quantum Fisher information for given photon numbers. For a squeezed thermal state, optimal even or odd states are needed to approach the Heisenberg limit. As examples, we consider several common even or odd states: Fock states, even or odd coherent states, squeezed vacuum states, and single-photon-subtracted squeezed vacuum states. We also demonstrate that super-precision can be realized by implementing the parity measurement for these states. ; Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, Phys. Rev. A in press