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arXiv:1707.01433

Lower Bounds on Quantum Metrological Precision

Iagoba Apellaniz

Published Jul 5, 2017• 0 citations
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Abstract

In this thesis, first, we investigate the metrological usefulness of a family of states known as unpolarized Dicke states, which turn to be very sensitive to the magnetic field. Quantum mechanics plays a central role in achieving such a high precision. Second, we investigate possible lower bounds on the quantum Fisher information, a quantity that characterizes the usefulness of a state for quantum metrology, using the theory of Legendre transforms such that we obtain tight lower bounds based on few measurements of the initial quantum state that will be used for metrology. And last but not least, we investigate gradient magnetometry, i.e., we develop a theory to study the sensitivity of some states on the change in space of the magnetic field.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1707.01433

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In this thesis, first, we investigate the metrological usefulness of a family of states known as unpolarized Dicke states, which turn to be very sensitive to the magnetic field. Quantum mechanics plays a central role in achieving such a high precision. Second, we investigate possible lower bounds on the quantum Fisher information, a quantity that characterizes the usefulness of a state for quantum metrology, using the theory of Legendre transforms such that we obtain tight lower bounds based on few measurements of the initial quantum state that will be used for metrology. And last but not least, we investigate gradient magnetometry, i.e., we develop a theory to study the sensitivity of some states on the change in space of the magnetic field.
We develop a general theory to estimate magnetic field gradients in quantum metrology. We consider a system of NNN particles distributed on a line whose internal degrees of freedom interact with a magnetic field. Usually gradient estimation is based on precise measurements of the magnetic field at two different locations, performed with two independent groups of particles. This approach, however, is sensitive to fluctuations of the offset field determining the level splitting of the particles and results in collective dephasing. In this work, we use the framework of quantum metrology to assess the maximal accuracy for gradient estimation. For arbitrary positioning of particles, we identify optimal entangled and separable states, allowing the estimation of gradients with maximal accuracy, quantified by the quantum Fisher information. We also analyze the performance of states from the decoherence-free subspace (DFS), which are insensitive to the fluctuations of the magnetic offset field. We find that these states allow us to measure a gradient directly, without the necessity of estimating the magnetic offset field. Moreover, we show that DFS states attain a precision for gradient estimation comparable to the optimal entangled states. Finally, for the above classes of states, we find simple and feasible measurements saturating the quantum Cram\'er-Rao bound.
We summarise important recent advances in quantum metrology, in connection to experiments in cold gases, trapped cold atoms and photons. First we review simple metrological setups, such as quantum metrology with spin squeezed states, with Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states, Dicke states and singlet states. We calculate the highest precision achievable in these schemes. Then, we present the fundamental notions of quantum metrology, such as shot-noise scaling, Heisenberg scaling, the quantum Fisher information and the Cram´er-Rao bound. Using these, we demonstrate that entanglement is needed to surpass the shot-noise scaling in very general metrological tasks with a linear interferometer. We discuss some applications of the quantum Fisher information, such as how it can be used to obtain a criterion for a quantum state to be a macroscopic superposition. We show how it is related to the the speed of a quantum evolution, and how it appears in the theory of the quantum Zeno effect. Finally, we explain how uncorrelated noise limits the highest achievable precision in very general metrological tasks.
Quantum metrology faces major challenges in noisy environments, where decoherence rapidly degrades useful quantum resources. We investigate the dynamics of the precision limits given by the quantum Fisher information (QFI) for phase estimation under spatially correlated dephasing. We characterize the dynamics of the QFI by the sensitivity and degradation indicators that can be obtained as analytical expressions derived using perturbative theory treatment. These short-time and weak-noise formulas yield analytic insight into how collective-spin moments govern both (i) the noiseless sensitivity and (ii) the leading noise-induced degradation of metrological usefulness. We identify a trade-off that is intrinsic to our commuting encoding-noise structure. We analyze the QFI dynamics for the Gaussian spin state (GSS) superpositions, encompassing spin coherent state (SCS), Dicke state superpositions, spin-squeezed states, and GHZ-like states. Predictions from indicators of the QFI dynamics are compared to both the quantum Cramér--Rao bound and the measurement-specific sensitivity bounds for an optimal parameter and interrogation time under a finite total time resource. When possible, we analytically derive the measurement-specific sensitivity bounds for spin-projection and parity-based measurements.
The foundational theory of quantum enhanced metrology for parameter estimation is of fundamental importance to the progression of science and technology as the scientific method is built upon empirical evidence, the acquisition of which is entirely reliant on measurement. Quantum mechanical properties can be exploited to yield measurement results to a greater precision (lesser uncertainty) than that which is permitted by classical methods. This has been mathematically demonstrated by the derivation of theoretical bounds which place a fundamental limit on the uncertainty of a measurement. Furthermore, quantum metrology is of immediate interest in the application of quantum technologies since measurement plays a central role. This thesis focuses on the role of quantum correlations and uncertainty relations which govern the precision bounds. We show how correlations can be distributed amongst limited resources in realistic scenarios, as permitted by current experimental capabilities, to achieve higher precision measurements than current approaches. This is extended to the setting of multiparameter estimation in which we demonstrate a more technologically feasible method of correlation distribution than those previously posited which perform as well as, or worse than, our scheme. Furthermore, a quantum metrology protocol is typically comprised of three stages: probe state preparation, sensing and then readout, where the time required for the first and last stages is usually neglected. We consider the more realistic sensing scenario of time being a limited resource which is divided amongst the three stages and demonstrate the most efficient use of this resource. Additionally, we take an information theoretic approach to quantum mechanical uncertainty relations and derive a one-parameter class of uncertainty relations which supplies more information about the quantum mechanical system of interest than conventional uncertainty relations. Finally, we demonstrate how we can use this class of uncertainty relations to reconstruct information of the state of the quantum mechanical system.
We summarize important recent advances in quantum metrology, in connection to experiments in cold gases, trapped cold atoms and photons. First we review simple metrological setups, such as quantum metrology with spin squeezed states, with Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger states, Dicke states and singlet states. We calculate the highest precision achievable in these schemes. Then, we present the fundamental notions of quantum metrology, such as shot-noise scaling, Heisenberg scaling, the quantum Fisher information and the Cramér–Rao bound. Using these, we demonstrate that entanglement is needed to surpass the shot-noise scaling in very general metrological tasks with a linear interferometer. We discuss some applications of the quantum Fisher information, such as how it can be used to obtain a criterion for a quantum state to be a macroscopic superposition. We show how it is related to the speed of a quantum evolution, and how it appears in the theory of the quantum Zeno effect. Finally, we explain how uncorrelated noise limits the highest achievable precision in very general metrological tasks. This article is part of a special issue of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical devoted to '50 years of Bell's theorem'.
Quantum metrology enhances the sensitivity of parameter estimation using the distinctive resources of quantum mechanics such as entanglement. It has been shown that the precision of estimating an overall multiplicative factor of a Hamiltonian can be increased to exceed the classical limit, yet little is known about estimating a general Hamiltonian parameter. In this paper, we study this problem in detail. We find that the scaling of the estimation precision with the number of systems can always be optimized to the Heisenberg limit, while the time scaling can be quite different from that of estimating an overall multiplicative factor. We derive the generator of local parameter translation on the unitary evolution operator of the Hamiltonian, and use it to evaluate the estimation precision of the parameter and establish a general upper bound on the quantum Fisher information. The results indicate that the quantum Fisher information generally can be divided into two parts: one is quadratic in time, while the other oscillates with time. When the eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian do not depend on the parameter, the quadratic term vanishes, and the quantum Fisher information will be bounded in this case. To illustrate the results, we give an example of estimating a parameter of a magnetic field by measuring a spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​ particle and compare the results for estimating the amplitude and the direction of the magnetic field.