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arXiv:1608.07684 · Physical Review A

Quantum metrology in coarsened measurement reference

Dong Xie, Chunling Xu, An Min Wang

Published Jan 17, 2017• 6 citations
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Abstract

We investigate the role of coarsened measurement reference, which originates from the coarsened reference time and basis, in quantum metrology. When the measurement is based on one common reference basis, the disadvantage of coarsened measurement can be removed by symmetry. Owing to the coarsened reference basis, the entangled state cannot perform better than the product state for a large number of probe particles in estimating the phase. Given a finite uncertainty of the coarsened reference basis, the optimal number of probe particles is obtained. Finally, we prove that the maximally entangled state always achieves better frequency precision in the case of non-Markovian dephasing than that in the case of Markovian dephasing. The product state is more resistant to the interference of the coarsened reference time than the entangled state.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.95.012117

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We investigate the role of coarsened measurement reference, which originates from the coarsened reference time and basis, in quantum metrology. When the measurement is based on one common reference basis, the disadvantage of coarsened measurement can be removed by symmetry. Owing to the coarsened reference basis, the entangled state cannot perform better than the product state for a large number of probe particles in estimating the phase. Given a finite uncertainty of the coarsened reference basis, the optimal number of probe particles is obtained. Finally, we prove that the maximally entangled state always achieves better frequency precision in the case of non-Markovian dephasing than that in the case of Markovian dephasing. The product state is more resistant to the interference of the coarsened reference time than the entangled state.
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There is growing belief that the next decade will see the emergence of sensing devices based on the laws of quantum physics that outperform some of our current sensing devices. For example, in frequency estimation, using a probe prepared in an entangled state can, in principle, lead to a precision gain compared to a probe prepared in a separable state. Even in the presence of some forms of decoherence, it has been shown that the precision gain can increase with the number of probe particles NNN. Usually, however, the entangled and separable state preparation and readout times are assumed to be negligible. We find that a probe in a maximally entangled (GHZ) state can give an advantage over a separable state only if the entangled state preparation and readout times are lower than a certain threshold. When the probe system suffers dephasing, this threshold is much lower (and more difficult to attain) than it is for an isolated probe. Further, we find that in realistic situations the maximally entangled probe gives a precision advantage only up to some finite number of probe particles Ncutoff{N}_{\text{cutoff}}Ncutoff​ that is lower for a dephasing probe than it is for an isolated probe.
It is well known that a quantum correlated probe can yield better precision in estimating an unknown parameter than classically possible. However, how such a quantum probe should be measured remains somewhat elusive. We examine the role of measurements in quantum metrology by considering two types of readout strategies: coherent , where all probes are measured simultaneously in an entangled basis; and adaptive , where probes are measured sequentially, with each measurement one way conditioned on the prior outcomes. Here we firstly show that for classically correlated probes the two readout strategies yield the same precision. Secondly, we construct an example of a noisy multipartite quantum system where coherent readout yields considerably better precision than adaptive readout. This highlights a fundamental difference between classical and quantum parameter estimation. From the practical point of view, our findings are relevant for the optimal design of precision-measurement quantum devices.
Quantum metrology is a rapidly developing branch of quantum technologies. While various theories have been established on quantum metrology for Markovian processes, i.e., quantum channel estimation, quantum metrology for non-Markovian processes is much less explored. In this Letter, we establish a general framework of non-Markovian quantum metrology. For any parametrized non-Markovian process on a finite-dimensional system, we derive a formula for the maximal amount of quantum Fisher information that can be extracted from it by an optimally controlled probe state. In addition, we design an algorithm that evaluates this quantum Fisher information via semidefinite programming. We apply our framework to noisy frequency estimation, where we find that the optimal performance of quantum metrology is better in the non-Markovian scenario than in the Markovian scenario and explore the possibility of efficient sensing via simple variational circuits.
We explore the performance of the metrology scheme by employing a quantum time flip during encoding, a specific case of processes with indefinite time direction, which we refer to as indefinite time directed metrology ( ITDM ). In the case of single parameter estimation of a unitary, we demonstrate that our protocol can achieve Heisenberg scaling (1/N) with product probe states, surpassing the standard quantum limit (1/N) , where N is the number of particles in the probe. We establish this by computing the quantum Fisher information ( QFI ) which is a lower bound on the root mean square error occurred during parameter estimation. Although we analytically prove the optimality of the symmetric product probe state in ITDM , entangled probe states produce a higher QFI than optimal product probes without enhancing scaling, highlighting the non-essentiality of entanglement. For phase estimation, we propose a single-qubit measurement on the control qubit that accomplishes near-optimal Fisher information and eventually reaches Heisenberg scaling. Our findings reveal the best orientation of product probe states in every pertinent situation, emphasizing its independence from the parameter to be estimated in the limiting case. Furthermore, we illustrate the benefits of ITDM in noisy metrology, outperforming existing techniques in some situations.