Quantum Noise Limited Nonlinear Phase-Preserving Amplification of a Bosonic Mode

Does quantum mechanics allow for deterministic amplification schemes that simultaneously behave uniformly for all angles of bosonic phase space (i.e. phase preserving) and are nonlinear in the underlying field operators? Would such a scheme have some utility to quantum information science? In this paper we answer both questions with a resounding yes. Such amplifiers exist, but their form is highly constrained compared to the more general set of noise limited nonlinear amplifiers previously studied in the literature. This enables us to characterize the entire class of bosonic noise-limited nonlinear phase preserving amplifiers, and identify their utility: namely, the optimal amplification of Yurke-Stoler cat states and Kerr kitten states.