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arXiv:2401.06543 · New Journal of Physics

Fisher information rates in sequentially measured quantum systems

Eoin O’Connor, Steve Campbell, Gabriel Teixeira Landi

Published Mar 1, 2024• 9 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract We consider the impact that temporal correlations in the measurement statistics can have on the achievable precision in a sequential metrological protocol. In this setting, and for a single quantum probe, we establish that it is the transitions between the measurement basis states that plays the most significant role in determining the precision, with the resulting conditional Fisher information being interpretable as a rate of information acquisition. Projective measurements are shown to elegantly demonstrate this in two disparate estimation settings. Firstly, in determining the temperature of an environment and, secondly, to ascertain a parameter of the system Hamiltonian. In both settings we show that the sequential estimation approach can provide a useful method to enhance the achievable precision.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/ad345c

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Abstract We consider the impact that temporal correlations in the measurement statistics can have on the achievable precision in a sequential metrological protocol. In this setting, and for a single quantum probe, we establish that it is the transitions between the measurement basis states that plays the most significant role in determining the precision, with the resulting conditional Fisher information being interpretable as a rate of information acquisition. Projective measurements are shown to elegantly demonstrate this in two disparate estimation settings. Firstly, in determining the temperature of an environment and, secondly, to ascertain a parameter of the system Hamiltonian. In both settings we show that the sequential estimation approach can provide a useful method to enhance the achievable precision.
Abstract Many real-world tasks include some kind of parameter estimation, i.e. the determination of a parameter encoded in a probability distribution. Often, such probability distributions arise from stochastic processes. For a stationary stochastic process with temporal correlations, the random variables that constitute it are identically distributed but not independent. This is the case, for instance, for quantum continuous measurements. In this article, we derive the asymptotic Fisher information rate for a stationary process with finite Markov order. We give a precise expression for this rate which is determined by the process’ conditional distribution up to its Markov order. Second, we demonstrate with suitable examples that correlations may both enhance or hamper the metrological precision. Indeed, unlike for entropic information quantities, in general nothing can be said about the sub- or super-additivity of the joint Fisher information in the presence of correlations. To illustrate our results, we apply them to thermometry on an Ising spin chain, considering nearest-neighbour and next-to-nearest neighbour coupling. In this case, the asymptotic Fisher information rate is directly connected to the specific heat capacity of the spin chain. We observe that the presence of correlations strongly enhances the estimation precision in an anti-ferromagnetic chain, while in a ferromagnetic chain this is not the case.
Abstract We study the impact of quantum correlations existing within the system-environment thermal equilibrium state while estimating the parameters of the spin reservoir. By employing various physical situations of interest, we present results for the reservoir temperature and its coupling strength with the central two-level system. The central system (probe) interacts with the bunch of randomly oriented spin systems and attains a thermal equilibrium state. We consider a projective measurement which prepares the probe’s initial state, and then the global system (probe and reservoir) evolves unitarily. The reduced density operator encapsulates the information about the spin reservoir which can be extracted by doing measurements on the probe. The precision of such measurement is quantified by quantum Fisher information. We repeat this process if the probe-reservoir initial state is not correlated (product state). We compare the estimation results for both with and without the outturn of initial correlations. In the temperature estimation case, our results are promising as one can significantly improve the accuracy of the estimates by including the effect of initial correlations. A similar trend prevails in the case of coupling strength estimation especially at low temperatures.
The conventional formulation of quantum sensing is based on the assumption that the probe is reset to its initial state after each measurement. In a very distinct approach, one can also pursue a sequential measurement scheme in which time-consuming resetting is avoided. In this situation, every measurement outcome effectively comes from a different probe, yet is correlated with other data samples. Finding a proper description for the precision of sequential measurement sensing is very challenging as it requires the analysis of long sequences with exponentially large outcomes. Here, we develop a recursive formula and an efficient Monte Carlo approach to calculate the Fisher information, as a figure of merit for sensing precision, for arbitrary lengths of sequential measurements. Our results show that the value of the Fisher information initially increases nonlinearly with the number of measurements and then asymptotically saturates to a linear scaling. This transition, which fundamentally constrains the extractable information about the parameter of interest, is directly linked to the finite memory of the probe when it undergoes multiple sequential measurements. Based on these findings, we establish a figure of merit to determine the optimal measurement sequence length and exemplify our results in three different physical systems.
We study the behavior of quantum Fisher information for a qubit probe that is interacting with a squeezed thermal environment. We analyzed the effect of squeezing parameters on the dynamics of quantum Fisher information which affects the optimal precision of the estimation parameter. We show that the squeezed field may offer a significant role in the precise measurement of the parameter cut-off frequency which is linked to the environment correlation time. Our results may be useful in quantum metrology, communication, and quantum estimation processes.
In parameter estimation, the saturation of the quantum Cram\'er-Rao bound (QCRB) requests one to perform projective measurements on the eigenvectors of the symmetric logarithmic derivative (SLD). However, it maybe infeasible to saturate the QCRB in composite systems on account of the technological difficulties. In practice, it is necessary to perform sequential measurements on different subsystems to obtain a precise estimation. In this paper, we derive the expression of Fisher information (FI) for a sequential measurements scheme in composite systems with NNN interacting subsystems. The result shows that the more subsystems used, the higher FI obtained due to the nonnegative property of FI. We illustrate the optimal measurements for different conditional density matrices in every subsystems are nonidentical, which depends on the previous outcomes. In addition, utilizing the convexity property of the quantum FI, we prove that the optimal projective measurements on the eigenvectors of the SLD of the subsystem reduced density matrix can be regarded as a trade off of the nonidentical optimal measurements of the conditional density matrices in every subsystems. In addition, importantly, we show the measurement sequence of the subsystem should be considered in the optimization to obtain a precise estimation for the sequential measurements scheme. Finally, we apply the theory to a nuclear spins control model where we concern the estimation of nuclear Larmor frequency. We should point out that the precision obtained by the sequential measurements scheme is no better than the theoretical result in the global system limited by the QCRB but more realistic, and better than the local measurements in one of the subsystems.
We consider the estimation of parameters encoded in the measurement record of a continuously monitored quantum system in the jump unraveling, corresponding to a single-shot scenario, where information is continuously gathered. Here, it is generally difficult to assess the precision of the estimation procedure via the Fisher Information due to intricate temporal correlations and memory effects. In this paper we provide a full set of solutions to this problem. First, for multi-channel renewal processes we relate the Fisher Information to an underlying Markov chain and derive a easily computable expression for it. For non-renewal processes, we introduce a new algorithm that combines two methods: the monitoring operator method for metrology and the Gillespie algorithm which allows for efficient sampling of a stochastic form of the Fisher Information along individual quantum trajectories. We show that this stochastic Fisher Information satisfies useful properties related to estimation on a single run. Finally, we consider the case where some information is lost in data compression/post-selection and provide tools for computing the Fisher Information in this case. All scenarios are illustrated with instructive examples from quantum optics and condensed matter.