Fundamental quantum interferometry bound for the squeezed-light-enhanced gravitational wave detector GEO 600

The fundamental quantum interferometry bound limits the sensitivity of an interferometer for a given total rate of photons and for a given decoherence rate inside the measurement device. We theoretically show that the recently reported quantum-noise-limited sensitivity of the squeezed-light-enhanced German-British gravitational wave detector GEO 600 is exceedingly close to this bound, given the present amount of optical loss. Furthermore, our result proves that the employed combination of a bright coherent state and a squeezed vacuum state is generally the optimum practical approach for phase estimation with high precision on absolute scales. Based on our analysis we conclude that the application of neither Fock states nor NOON states nor any other sophisticated nonclassical quantum state would have yielded an appreciably higher quantum-noise-limited sensitivity.