Efficient tomography of coherent optical detectors

We propose an efficient tomography method to address the reconstruction complexity of any general quantum coherent-optical detectors. By extracting the linear loss from the entire detection system, we obtain the effective positive-operator-valued measure in matrix representations with a much smaller size. We apply this method to reconstruct a typical coherent detector: the weak-field homodyne detector. The method also highlights the effects of linear loss on nonclassical features of coherent optical detectors.

Automated summary

An efficient tomography method is proposed to address the reconstruction complexity of general quantum coherent-optical detectors. By extracting linear loss and obtaining effective positive-operator-valued measure in matrix representations, the method is applied to reconstruct a typical coherent detector and highlights the effects of linear loss on nonclassical features of coherent optical detectors.