The postselected quantum metrological scheme is especially advantageous when the final measurements are either very noisy or expensive in practical experiments. In this Letter, we put forward a general theory on the compression channels in postselected quantum metrology. We define the basic notions characterizing the compression quality and illuminate the underlying structure of lossless compression channels. Previous experiments on postselected optical phase estimation and weak-value amplification are shown to be particular cases of this general theory. Furthermore, for two categories of bipartite systems, we show that the compression loss can be made arbitrarily small even when the compression channel acts only on one subsystem. These findings can be employed to distribute quantum measurements so that the measurement noise and cost are dramatically reduced.
The postselected quantum metrological scheme is especially advantageous when the final measurements are either very noisy or expensive in practical experiments. In this Letter, we put forward a general theory on the compression channels in postselected quantum metrology. We define the basic notions characterizing the compression quality and illuminate the underlying structure of lossless compression channels. Previous experiments on postselected optical phase estimation and weak-value amplification are shown to be particular cases of this general theory. Furthermore, for two categories of bipartite systems, we show that the compression loss can be made arbitrarily small even when the compression channel acts only on one subsystem. These findings can be employed to distribute quantum measurements so that the measurement noise and cost are dramatically reduced.
In quantum metrology, information about unknown parameters θ = ( θ 1 , ... , θ M ) is accessed by measuring probe states ρ ̂ θ . In experimental settings where copies of ρ ̂ θ can be produced rapidly (e.g., in optics), the information-extraction bottleneck can stem from high postprocessing costs or detector saturation. In these regimes, it is desirable to compress the information encoded in ρ ̂ θ ⊗ n into m < n copies of a postselected state: ρ ̂ θ ps ⊗ m . Remarkably, recent works have shown that, in the absence of noise, compression can be lossless, for m / n arbitrarily small. Here, we fully characterize the family of filters that enable lossless compression. Further, we study the effect of noise on quantum-metrological information amplification. Motivated by experiments, we consider a popular family of filters, which we show is optimal for qubit probes. Further, we show that, for the optimal filter in this family, compression is still lossless if noise acts after the filter. However, in the presence of depolarizing noise before filtering, compression is lossy. In both cases, information extraction can be implemented significantly better than simply discarding a constant fraction of the states, even in the presence of strong noise. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Postselection can compress the metrological information and improve sensitivity in the presence of certain types of technical noise. Postselected quantum metrology with pure states has been significantly advanced recently. However, extending this framework to mixed states leads to formidable challenges, such as the difficulty in searching for lossless postselection measurements or even the loss of metrological information. In this work, we leverage the intuition for the lossless postselection of pure states and generalize the theory to the lossless postselection of a class of mixed states, dubbed quasi-pure states. We illustrate our findings in postselected quantum imaging, unitary estimation problems, and show that the quasi-pure structure can be universally engineered through only classical correlation with an ancilla. Our findings extend the utility of postselection techniques to scenarios with decoherence and also offer new perspectives to foundational questions in quantum information geometry.
In conventional measurement, to reach the greatest accuracy of parameter estimation, all samples must be measured since each independent sample contains the same quantum Fisher information. In postselected metrology, postselection can concentrate the quantum Fisher information of the initial samples into a tiny post-selected sub-ensemble. It has been proven that this quantum advantage can not be realized in any classically commuting theory. In this work, we present that the advantage of postselection in weak value amplification (WVA) can not be achieved without quantum coherence. The quantum coherence of the initial system is closely related to the preparation costs and measurement costs in parameter estimation. With the increase of initial quantum coherence, the joint values of preparation costs and measurement costs can be optimized to smaller. Moreover, we derive an analytical tradeoff relation between the preparation, measurement and the quantum coherence. We further experimentally test the tradeoff relation in a linear optical setup. The experimental and theoretical results are in good agreement and show that the quantum coherence plays a key role in bounding the resource costs in the postselected metrology process.
We reveal the noncyclic Pancharatnam phase—arising from the coherent system-meter interaction—as a fundamental criterion that governs the optimal performance of quantum compression channels in postselected metrology. This phase embodies a geometric connection that enables precise control over the parallel evolution of the meter state, thereby maximizing the quantum Fisher information per trial and achieving lossless compression channels. Remarkably, fine-tuning the postselection parameter just below this optimal phase incurs substantial information loss, whereas tuning it just above fully suppresses undesired parallel evolution, enhancing information retention beyond that achievable in postselected protocols lacking Pancharatnam phase effects. We further reveal that leveraging qudit-meter states can unlock a substantial additional enhancement. These findings establish the Pancharatnam phase as a geometric benchmark, guiding the design of high-precision quantum parameter estimation protocols.
Abstract: In every parameter-estimation experiment, the final measurement or the postprocessing incurs a cost. Postselection can improve the rate of Fisher information (the average information learned about an unknown parameter from a trial) to cost. We show that this improvement stems from the negativity of a particular quasiprobability distribution, a quantum extension of a probability distribution. In a classical theory, in which all observables commute, our quasiprobability distribution is real and nonnegative. In a quantum-mechanically noncommuting theory, nonclassicality manifests in negative or nonreal quasiprobabilities. Negative quasiprobabilities enable postselected experiments to outperform optimal postselection-free experiments: postselected quantum experiments can yield anomalously large information-cost rates. This advantage, we prove, is unrealizable in any classically commuting theory. Finally, we construct a preparation-and-postselection procedure that yields an arbitrarily large Fisher information. Our results establish the nonclassicality of a metrological advantage, leveraging our quasiprobability distribution as a mathematical tool.
Preserving the precision of the parameter of interest in the presence of environmental decoherence is an important yet challenging task in dissipative quantum sensing. In this work, we study quantum metrology when the decoherence effect is unraveled by a set of quantum measurements, dubbed quantum measurement encoding. In our case, the estimation parameter is encoded into a quantum state through a quantum measurement, unlike the parameter encoding through a unitary channel in the decoherence-free case or trace-preserving quantum channels in the case of decoherence. We identify conditions for a precision-preserving measurement encoding. These conditions can be employed to transfer metrological information from one subsystem to another through quantum measurements. Furthermore, postselected non-Hermitian sensing can also be viewed as quantum sensing with measurement encoding. When the precision-preserving conditions are violated in non-Hermitian sensing, we derive a universal formula for the loss of precision. Published by the American Physical Society 2024