  A general quantum limit to the sensitivity of particle position measurements
is derived following the simple principle of the Heisenberg microscope. The
value of this limit is calculated for particles in the Rayleigh and Mie
scattering regimes, and with parameters which are relevant to optical tweezers
experiments. The minimum power required to observe the zero-point motion of a
levitating bead is also calculated, with the optimal particle diameter always
smaller than the wavelength. We show that recent optical tweezers experiments
are within two orders of magnitude of quantum limited sensitivity, suggesting
that quantum optical resources may soon play an important role in high
sensitivity tracking applications.
