Metrological resolution and minimum uncertainty states in linear and nonlinear signal detection schemes

We study the performance of linear and nonlinear optical schemes for the detection of weak signals for two classes of probe states. These are quadrature coherent squeezed states and the minimum uncertainty states of the generator of the transformation and the measured observable. Both for linear and nonlinear schemes we show that the generator-measurement minimum uncertainty states are far from being optimum, while the quadrature coherent squeezed states can reach maximum accuracy almost for the same amount of squeezing in both cases. The analysis is largely based on a suitable approximation treating the photon number as a continuous variable.