No Arabic abstract
We provide efficient and intuitive tools for deriving bounds on achievable precision in quantum enhanced metrology based on the geometry of quantum channels and semi-definite programming. We show that when decoherence is taken into account, the maximal possible quantum enhancement amounts generically to a constant factor rather than quadratic improvement. We apply these tools to derive bounds for models of decoherence relevant for metrological applications including: dephasing,depolarization, spontaneous emission and photon loss.
The Heisenberg limit is the superior precision available by entanglement sensors. However, entanglementis fragile against dephasing, and there is no known quantum metrology protocol that can achieve Heisenberg limited sensitivity with the presence of independent dephasing. Here, we show that the Heisenberg limit is attainable under the effect of independent dephasing under conditions where the probe qubits decohere due to both target fields and local environments. To detect the target fields, we exploit the entanglement properties to decay much faster than the classical states due to collective noise while most of the previous schemes use a coherent phase shift from the target fields. Actually, if the temporally fluctuating target fields behave as Markovian collective dephasing, we can estimate the collective dephasing rate with a sensitivity at the Heisenberg limit under the effect of independent dephasing. Our work opens the possibility for robust Heisenberg-limited metrology.
We study the sensitivity and resolution of phase measurement in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with two-mode squeezed vacuum (<n> photons on average). We show that super-resolution and sub-Heisenberg sensitivity is obtained with parity detection. In particular, in our setup, dependence of the signal on the phase evolves <n> times faster than in traditional schemes, and uncertainty in the phase estimation is better than 1/<n>.
The main obstacle for practical quantum technology is the noise, which can induce the decoherence and destroy the potential quantum advantages. The fluctuation of a field, which induces the dephasing of the system, is one of the most common noises and widely regarded as detrimental to quantum technologies. Here we show, contrary to the conventional belief, the fluctuation can be used to improve the precision limits in quantum metrology for the estimation of various parameters. Specifically, we show that for the estimation of the direction and rotating frequency of a field, the achieved precisions at the presence of the fluctuation can even surpass the highest precision achievable under the unitary dynamics which have been widely taken as the ultimate limit. We provide explicit protocols, which employs the adaptive quantum error correction, to achieve the higher precision limits with the fluctuating fields. Our study provides a completely new perspective on the role of the noises in quantum metrology. It also opens the door for higher precisions beyond the limit that has been believed to be ultimate.
Two-mode interferometers, such as Michelson interferometer based on two spatial optical modes, lay the foundations for quantum metrology. Instead of exploring quantum entanglement in the two-mode interferometers, a single bosonic mode also promises a measurement precision beyond the shot-noise limit (SNL) by taking advantage of the infinite-dimensional Hilbert space of Fock states. However, the experimental demonstration still remains elusive. Here, we demonstrate a single-mode phase estimation that approaches the Heisenberg limit (HL) unconditionally. Due to the strong dispersive nonlinearity and long coherence time of a microwave cavity, quantum states of the form $left(left|0rightrangle +left|Nrightrangle right)/sqrt{2}$ are generated, manipulated and detected with high fidelities, leading to an experimental phase estimation precision scaling as $sim N^{-0.94}$. A $9.1$~$mathrm{dB}$ enhancement of the precision over the SNL at $N=12$, which is only $1.7$~$mathrm{dB}$ away from the HL, is achieved. Our experimental architecture is hardware efficient and can be combined with the quantum error correction techniques to fight against decoherence, thus promises the quantum enhanced sensing in practical applications.
The critical quantum metrology, which exploits the quantum phase transition for high precision measurement, has gained increasing attention recently. The critical quantum metrology with the continuous quantum phase transition, however, is experimentally very challenging since the continuous quantum phase transition only exists at the thermal dynamical limit. Here, we propose an adiabatic scheme on a perturbed Ising spin model with the first order quantum phase transition. By employing the Landau-Zener anticrossing, we can not only encode the unknown parameter in the ground state but also tune the energy gap to control the evolution time of the adiabatic passage. We experimentally implement the adiabatic scheme on the nuclear magnetic resonance and show that the achieved precision attains the Heisenberg scaling. The advantages of the scheme-easy implementation, robust against the decay, tunable energy gap-are critical for practical applications of quantum metrology.