Quantum Discrimination of Noisy Photon-Added Coherent States

Quantum state discrimination (QSD) is a key enabler in quantum sensing and networking, for which we envision the utility of non-coherent quantum states such as photon-added coherent states (PACSs). This paper addresses the problem of discriminating between two noisy PACSs. First, we provide representation of PACSs affected by thermal noise during state preparation in terms of Fock basis and quasi-probability distributions. Then, we demonstrate that the use of PACSs instead of coherent states can significantly reduce the error probability in QSD. Finally, we quantify the effects of phase diffusion and photon loss on QSD performance. The findings of this paper reveal the utility of PACSs in several applications involving QSD.