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    Weak-value amplification for longitudinal phase measurements approaching the shot-noise limit characterized by Allan variance

    Jing-Hui Huang (黄鲸珲)* and Xiang-Yun Hu (胡祥云)†

    • *Contact author: jinghuihuang@cug.edu.cn
    • †Contact author: xyhu@cug.edu.cn

    Phys. Rev. A 113, 033711 – Published 9 March, 2026

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/g33l-rgdh

    Abstract

    We report a quantitative evaluation of weak-value amplification (WVA) for longitudinal phase measurements using Allan variance analysis. Building on a recent double-slit interferometry experiment with real weak values [Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 080802 (2025)], our Allan variance analysis demonstrates measurement of a few attosecond time delay approaching the shot-noise limit at short averaging intervals of T=0.01–0.1s, representing two orders of magnitude variance reduction compared to the T=300s operating point in prior implementations. We demonstrate that the Allan-variance noise floor scales with the inverse of the detected photon number 1/Nr, confirming shot-noise-limited operation with WVA. Furthermore, this 1/Nr scaling experimentally validates that WVA can outperform conventional measurement under fixed detected photon number and detector saturation, in the presence of technical noise, as theoretically predicted [Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 070802 (2017)]. Our results provide rigorous, quantitative evidence of the near-optimal noise performance achievable with WVA, establishing a benchmark for precision optical metrology. This advancement is particularly relevant to applications such as gravitational-wave detection, where signals predominantly occupy the high-frequency regime (>10Hz).

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