The phase sensitivity of a fully quantum three-mode nonlinear interferometer

We study a nonlinear interferometer consisting of two consecutive parametric amplifiers, where all three optical fields (pump, signal and idler) are treated quantum mechanically, allowing for pump depletion and other quantum phenomena. The interaction of all three fields in the final amplifier leads to an interference pattern from which we extract the phase uncertainty. We find that the phase uncertainty oscillates around a saturation level that decreases as the mean number N of input pump photons increases. For optimal interaction strengths, we also find a phase uncertainty below the shot-noise level and obtain a Heisenberg scaling 1/N. This is in contrast to the conventional treatment within the parametric approximation, where the Heisenberg scaling is observed as a function of the number of down-converted photons inside the interferometer.