Quantum back action imposes fundamental sensitivity limits to the majority of quantum measurements. The effect results from the unavoidable contamination of the measured parameter with the quantum noise of a meter. Back action evading measurements take advantage of the quantum correlations introduced by the system under study to the meter and allow overcoming the fundamental limitations. The measurements are frequently restricted in their bandwidth due to a finite response time of the system components. Here we show that probing a mechanical oscillator with a dichromatic field with frequencies separated by the oscillator frequency enables independent detection and complete subtraction of the measurement noise associated with the quantum back action.
Standard Quantum Limit (SQL) of a classical mechanical force detection results from quantum back action impinged by the meter on a probe mechanical transducer perturbed by the force of interest. In this paper we introduce a technique of continuous vy{broadband} back action avoiding measurements for the case of a resonant signal force acting on a linear mechanical oscillator supporting one of mirrors of an optical Michelson-Sagnac Interferometer (MSI). The interferometer with the movable mirror is an opto-mechanical transducer able to support polychromatic probe field. The method involves a dichromatic optical probe resonant with the MSI modes and having frequency separation equal to the mechanical frequency. We show that analyzing each of the harmonics of the probe reflected from the mechanical system separately and postprocessing the measurement results allows excluding the back action in a broad frequency band and measuring the force with sensitivity better than SQL.
Quantum mechanics postulates that measuring the qubits wave function results in its collapse, with the recorded discrete outcome designating the particular eigenstate that the qubit collapsed into. We show that this picture breaks down when the qubit is strongly driven during measurement. More specifically, for a fast evolving qubit the measurement returns the time-averaged expectation value of the measurement operator, erasing information about the initial state of the qubit, while completely suppressing the measurement back-action. We call this regime `quantum rifling, as the fast spinning of the Bloch vector protects it from deflection into either of its eigenstates. We study this phenomenon with two superconducting qubits coupled to the same probe field and demonstrate that quantum rifling allows us to measure either one of the qubits on demand while protecting the state of the other from measurement back-action. Our results allow for the implementation of selective read out multiplexing of several qubits, contributing to the efficient scaling up of quantum processors for future quantum technologies.
In quantum thermodynamics, the standard approach to estimate work fluctuations in unitary processes is based on two projective measurements, one performed at the beginning of the process and one at the end. The first measurement destroys any initial coherence in the energy basis, thus preventing later interference effects. In order to decrease this back-action, a scheme based on collective measurements has been proposed in~[PRL 118, 070601 (2017)]. Here, we report its experimental implementation in an optical system. The experiment consists of a deterministic collective measurement on identically prepared two qubits, encoded in the polarisation and path degree of a single photon. The standard two projective measurement approach is also experimentally realized for comparison. Our results show the potential of collective schemes to decrease the back-action of projective measurements, and capture subtle effects arising from quantum coherence.
We report on a back-action evading (BAE) measurement of the photon number of fiber optical solitons operating in the quantum regime. We employ a novel detection scheme based on spectral filtering of colliding optical solitons. The measurements of the BAE criteria demonstrate significant quantum state preparation and transfer of the input signal to the signal and probe outputs exiting the apparatus, displaying the quantum-nondemolition (QND) behavior of the experiment.
The quantum measurement of any observable naturally leads to noise added by the act of measurement. Approaches to evade or reduce this noise can lead to substantial improvements in a wide variety of sensors, from laser interferometers to precision magnetometers and more. In this paper, we develop a measurement protocol based upon pioneering work by the gravitational wave community which allows for reduction of added noise from measurement by coupling an optical field to the momentum of a small mirror. As a specific implementation, we present a continuous measurement protocol using a double-ring optomechanical cavity. We demonstrate that with experimentally-relevant parameters, this protocol can lead to significant back-action noise evasion, yielding measurement noise below the standard quantum limit over many decades of frequency.