Abstract A central qubit coupled to an Ising ring of N qubits, operating close to a critical point is investigated as a potential precision quantum magnetometer for estimating an applied transverse magnetic field. We compute the quantum Fisher information for the central, probe qubit with the Ising chain initialized in its ground state or in a thermal state. The non-unitary evolution of the central qubit due to its interaction with the surrounding Ising ring enhances the accuracy of the magnetic field measurement. Near the critical point of the ring, Heisenberg-like scaling of the precision in estimating the magnetic field is obtained when the ring is initialized in its ground state. However, for finite temperatures, the Heisenberg scaling is limited to lower ranges of N values.
Abstract A central qubit coupled to an Ising ring of N qubits, operating close to a critical point is investigated as a potential precision quantum magnetometer for estimating an applied transverse magnetic field. We compute the quantum Fisher information for the central, probe qubit with the Ising chain initialized in its ground state or in a thermal state. The non-unitary evolution of the central qubit due to its interaction with the surrounding Ising ring enhances the accuracy of the magnetic field measurement. Near the critical point of the ring, Heisenberg-like scaling of the precision in estimating the magnetic field is obtained when the ring is initialized in its ground state. However, for finite temperatures, the Heisenberg scaling is limited to lower ranges of N values.
In this paper, we focus on the magnetic field sensing subject to a correlated noise. We use a ring spin chain with only the nearest neighbor interactions as our probe to estimate both the intensity B and the direction θ of the magnetic field when the probe reaches its steady state. We numerically calculate the quantum Fisher information (QFI) to characterize the estimation precision. On the one hand, for estimating B, we find that the coupling between spins in the probe plays an important role in the precision, and the largest value of the QFI can be achieved when θ = π/2 together with an optimal coupling. Moreover, for any direction, the precision scaling can be better than the Heisenberg-limit (HL) with a proper coupling. On the other hand, for estimating θ, we find that our probe can perform a high precision detection for θ ~ π/2, with the QFI much larger than that for any other directions, especially when the coupling is tuned to the optimal value. And we find that the precision scaling for θ ~ π/2 can be better than the HL, but for other directions, the precision scaling is only limited to the standard quantum limit (SQL). Due to the computational complexity we restrict the number of spins in the probe to 60.
We study in this work the metrology precision of a probe system coupled to an ancillary qubit. Restricting the probe-qubit coupling along only one or two directions is found to be a sufficient criterion for the effective dynamical generator to achieve the Heisenberg limit in precision. Under the criterion, the quantum Fisher information (QFI) about the to-be-estimated parameter becomes the expectation value of mean square of the effective generator with respect to the initial state of the composite system. Our criterion is justified in two distinct systems. For a bosonic probe, QFI about the displacement estimation is found to be proportional to the mean excitation number of probe. It renders a counterintuitive result that quantum metrology sensitivity can be enhanced by increasing the temperature of the probe system. For a spin-ensemble probe, QFI about both rotation-phase and magnetic-field estimation exhibit a quadratic dependence on the probe-spin number. It is found that even when the spin-ensemble is prepared as a finite-temperature state, faraway from the so-called resource states, e.g., the squeezed state or the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state, QFI can still manifest a Heisenberg scaling behavior.
We investigate superpositions of quantum Ising ground states generated through a quantum interaction, in which the nearest-neighbor coupling strength is promoted to an operator acting on a central auxiliary spin. We prepare the central spin in a superposition, which allows the chain to evolve coherently under different effective interaction strengths. The states are prepared by adiabatic evolution of the joint system comprising the central spin and the many-body spin chain, followed by a measurement on the central spin and post-selection of a specific outcome. It is possible to prepare superpositions of transverse-field quantum Ising ground states belonging to the three magnetic phases, namely, the paramagnetic, ferromagnetic, and anti-ferromagnetic phases. For a spin-1/2 central system, it is possible to prepare superpositions of ground states belonging to any two phases, while for the spin-1 case, the superpositions may contain three ground states, each belonging to one of the three phases. We analytically derive expressions for the magnetization, spin correlations, and entanglement of such states. The magnetization and spin correlations show distinct features in different superposition sectors. The nearest-neighbor entanglement is largest where the transverse field and Ising interaction compete, and its behavior differs from that of the magnetic observables. We also derive the quantum Fisher information relevant to estimating the Ising interaction strength. And it exhibits multiple peaks near the critical points of the constituent ground states, with the maximum value showing Heisenberg scaling, for the parameters and system sizes examined.
We consider quantum metrology for unitary evolutions generated by parameter-dependent Hamiltonians. We focus on the unitary evolutions generated by the Ising Hamiltonian that describes the dynamics of a one-dimensional chain of spins with nearest-neighbour interactions and in the presence of a global, transverse, magnetic field. We analytically solve the problem and show that the precision with which one can estimate the magnetic field (interaction strength) given one knows the interaction strength (magnetic field) scales at the Heisenberg limit, and can be achieved by a linear superposition of the vacuum and N free fermion states. In addition, we show that Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger-type states exhibit Heisenberg scaling in precision throughout the entire regime of parameters. Moreover, we numerically observe that the optimal precision using a product input state scales at the standard quantum limit.
We consider a process of parameter estimation in a spin-j system surrounded by a quantum-critical spin chain. Quantum Fisher information lies at the heart of the estimation task. We employ Ising spin chain in a transverse field as the environment which exhibits a quantum phase transition. Fisher information decays with time almost monotonously when the environment reaches the critical point. By choosing a fixed time or taking the time average, one can see the quantum Fisher information presents a sudden drop at the critical point. Different initial states of the environment are considered. The phenomenon that the quantum Fisher information, namely, the precision of estimation, changes dramatically can be used to detect the quantum criticality of the environment. We also introduce a general method to obtain the maximal Fisher information for a given state.
We put forward the idea of lattice quantum magnetometry, i.e., quantum sensing of magnetic fields by a charged (spinless) particle placed on a finite two-dimensional lattice. In particular, we focus on the detection of a locally static transverse magnetic field, either homogeneous or inhomogeneous, by performing ground-state measurements. The system turns out to be of interest as a quantum magnetometer, since it provides non-negligible quantum Fisher information (QFI) in a large range of configurations. Moreover, the QFI shows some relevant peaks, determined by the spectral properties of the Hamiltonian, suggesting that certain values of the magnetic fields may be estimated better than others, depending on the value of other tunable parameters. We also assess the performance of coarse-grained position measurement, showing that it may be employed to realize nearly optimal estimation strategies.