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arXiv:1412.1977 · Physical Review A

Quantum metrology with nonequilibrium steady states of quantum spin chains

Ugo Marzolino, Tomaž Prosen

Published Dec 23, 2014• 43 citations
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Abstract

We consider parameter estimations with probes being the boundary-driven or dissipated nonequilibrium steady states of $XXZ$ spin-$1/2$ chains. The parameters to be estimated are the dissipation coupling and the anisotropy of the spin-spin interaction. In the weak-coupling regime we compute the scaling of the Fisher information, i.e., the inverse best sensitivity among all estimators, with the number of spins. We find superlinear scalings and transitions between the distinct isotropic and anisotropic phases. We also look at the best relative error, which decreases with the number of particles faster than the shot-noise only for the estimation of anisotropy.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.90.062130

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We consider parameter estimations with probes being the boundary-driven or dissipated nonequilibrium steady states of XXZXXZXXZ spin-1/21/21/2 chains. The parameters to be estimated are the dissipation coupling and the anisotropy of the spin-spin interaction. In the weak-coupling regime we compute the scaling of the Fisher information, i.e., the inverse best sensitivity among all estimators, with the number of spins. We find superlinear scalings and transitions between the distinct isotropic and anisotropic phases. We also look at the best relative error, which decreases with the number of particles faster than the shot-noise only for the estimation of anisotropy.
Abstract We propose two critical dissipative quantum metrology schemes for single parameter estimation which are based on a quantum probe consisting of a coherently driven ensemble of N spin-1/2 particles under the effect of a collective spin decay. The collective spin system exhibits a dissipative phase transition between thermal and ferromagnetic phases, which is characterized by a nonanalytical behavior of the spin observables. We show that thanks to the dissipative phase transition the sensitivity of the parameter estimation can be significantly enhanced. Furthermore, we show that our steady state is a spin squeezed state which allows one to perform parameter estimation with sub shot-noise limited measurement uncertainty.
We investigated quantum critical behaviors in the nonequilibrium steady state of a XXZ spin chain with boundary Markovian noise using Fisher information. The latter represents the distance between two infinitesimally close states, and its superextensive size scaling witnesses a critical behavior due to a phase transition since all the interaction terms are extensive. Perturbatively, in the noise strength, we found superextensive Fisher information at anisotropy $|\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}|\ensuremath{\leqslant}1$ and irrational $\frac{arccos\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}{\ensuremath{\pi}}$ irrespective of the order of two noncommuting limits, i.e., the thermodynamic limit and the limit of sending $\frac{arccos\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}{\ensuremath{\pi}}$ to an irrational number via a sequence of rational approximants. From this result we argue the existence of a nonequilibrium quantum phase transition with a critical phase $|\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}|\ensuremath{\leqslant}1$. From the nonsuperextensivity of the Fisher information of reduced states, we infer that this nonequilibrium quantum phase transition does not have local order parameters but has nonlocal ones, at least at $|\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}|=1$. In the nonperturbative regime for the noise strength, we numerically computed the reduced Fisher information which lower bounds the full-state Fisher information and is superextensive only at $|\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}|=1$. From the latter result, we derived local order parameters at $|\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}|=1$ in the nonperturbative case. The existence of critical behavior witnessed by the Fisher information in the phase $|\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}|<1$ is still an open problem. The Fisher information also represents the best sensitivity for any estimation of the control parameter, in our case the anisotropy $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$, and its superextensivity implies enhanced estimation precision which is also highly robust in the presence of a critical phase.
We study the influence that collective transition phenomena have on quantum metrological protocols. The single spherical quantum spin (SQS) serves as stereotypical toy model that allows analytical insights on a mean-field level. First, we focus on equilibrium quantum criticality in the SQS and obtain the quantum Fisher information analytically, which is associated with the minimum lower bound for the precision of estimation of the parameter driving the phase transition. We compare it with the Fisher information for a specific experimental scenario where photon-counting-like measurements are employed. We find how quantum criticality and squeezing are useful resources in the metrological scenario. Second, we obtain the quantum Fisher information for the out-of-equilibrium transition in the dissipative nonequilibrium steady state and investigate how the presence of dissipation affects the parameter estimation. In this scenario, it is known that the critical point is shifted by an amount which depends on the dissipation rate. This is used here to design high precision protocols for a whole range of the transition-driving parameter in the ordered phase. In fact, for certain values of the parameter being estimated, dissipation may be used to obtain higher precision when compared to the equilibrium scenario.
A quantum many-body system coupled to an environment relaxes to a nonequilibrium steady state that can sustain order with no equilibrium counterpart. Computing such steady states is harder than closed-system dynamics as the density matrix problem squares the Hilbert-space dimension, and no free energy selects the steady state. The dissipative spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain is a benchmark example for nonequilibrium steady state physics; various methods have each calculated its phase diagram but do not agree, and a controlled determination at large system size has remained out of reach. Here we simulate the Lindblad dynamics of chains of up to 50 sites on the superconducting processor ibm_kingston -- 100 simultaneously active qubits at up to 1700 entangling-gate depths -- realizing the dissipation via Stinespring dilation. The system's dissipative evolution is a self-correcting mechanism that effectively erases errors, so hardware noise enters only as a weak competing dissipator. We measure static structure factors and resolve ferromagnetic, antiferromagnetic, spin-density-wave, and paramagnetic steady states, mapping the phase diagram with 117 quantum hardware data points across the JxJ_xJx​--JyJ_yJy​ plane. We uncover a rich non-equilibrium phase diagram of ordered phases with only remnants of the mean-field order, and where sharp transitions give way to the crossovers expected in one dimension. We also find the existence of an incipient (Trotter-induced) spin density wave phase, highlighting the potential of controlled Trotterization as a tool to engineer various magnetic phases in dissipative spin systems. Our quantum simulations largely settle the lingering uncertainty regarding the correct phase diagram of this benchmark system. Moreover, they show that quantum computers are now a feasible tool for addressing scientific questions involving dissipative quantum systems.
Abstract We address quantum characterization of anisotropic spin chains in the presence of anti-symmetric exchange, and investigate whether the Hamiltonian parameters of the chain may be estimated with precision approaching the ultimate limit imposed by quantum mechanics. At variance with previous approaches, we focus on the information that may be extracted by measuring only two neighboring spins rather than a global observable on the entire chain. We evaluate the Fisher information (FI) of a two-spin magnetization measure, and the corresponding quantum Fisher information (QFI), for all the relevant parameters, i.e. the spin coupling, the anisotropy, and the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya (DM) parameter. Our results show that the reduced system made of two neighboring spins may be indeed exploited as a probe to characterize global properties of the entire system. In particular, we find that the ratio between the FI and the QFI is close to unit for a large range of the coupling values. The DM coupling is beneficial for coupling estimation, since it leads to the presence of additional bumps and peaks in the FI and QFI, which are not present in a model that neglects exchange interaction and may be exploited to increase the robustness of the overall estimation procedure. Finally, we address the multiparameter estimation problem, and show that the model is compatible but sloppy, i.e. both the Uhlmann curvature and the determinant of the QFI matrix vanish. Physically, this means that the state of the system actually depends only on a reduced numbers of combinations of parameters, and not on all of them separately.
We conjecture that nonequilibrium boundary conditions generically trigger long-range order in nonequilibrium steady states of locally interacting quantum chains. Our result is based on large scale density matrix renormalization group simulations of several models of quantum spin-1/2 chains which are driven far from equilibrium by coupling to a pair of unequal Lindblad reservoirs attached locally to the ends of the chain. In particular, we find a phase transition from exponentially decaying to long-range spin-spin correlations in an integrable Heisenberg XXZ chain by changing the anisotropy parameter. Long-range order also typically emerges after breaking the integrability of the model.