Recent breakthroughs in quantum technology pave the way for extensive utilization of higher-dimensional quantum systems, which outperform their qubit counterparts in terms of capabilities and versatility. We present a framework for accurately predicting weak external magnetic fields using a higher-dimensional many-body quantum probe. We demonstrate that dimension serves as a valuable resource for quantum sensing when a transverse spin-s Ising chain interacts locally with a magnetic field whose strength has to be determined. We observe the distinct performance of sensors for spin chains with half-integer and integer spins. Furthermore, we highlight that the time duration appropriate for quantum-enhanced sensing increases with the increase of dimension. Additionally, we observe that, in addition to nearest-neighbor interactions, incorporating interactions between the next nearest-neighbor sites increases sensing precision, particularly for spin chains with integer spins. We also prove the dimensional-dependence of the bound on quantum Fisher information which provides the limit on the precision in estimating parameters.
Recent breakthroughs in quantum technology pave the way for extensive utilization of higher-dimensional quantum systems, which outperform their qubit counterparts in terms of capabilities and versatility. We present a framework for accurately predicting weak external magnetic fields using a higher-dimensional many-body quantum probe. We demonstrate that dimension serves as a valuable resource for quantum sensing when a transverse spin-s Ising chain interacts locally with a magnetic field whose strength has to be determined. We observe the distinct performance of sensors for spin chains with half-integer and integer spins. Furthermore, we highlight that the time duration appropriate for quantum-enhanced sensing increases with the increase of dimension. Additionally, we observe that, in addition to nearest-neighbor interactions, incorporating interactions between the next nearest-neighbor sites increases sensing precision, particularly for spin chains with integer spins. We also prove the dimensional-dependence of the bound on quantum Fisher information which provides the limit on the precision in estimating parameters.
The typical bound on parameter estimation, known as the standard quantum limit (SQL), can be surpassed by exploiting quantum resources such as entanglement. To estimate the magnetic probe field, we propose a quantum sensor based on a variable-range many-body quantum spin chain with a moderate transverse magnetic field. We report the threefold benefits of employing a long-range system as a quantum sensor. First, sensors with quasi-long-range interactions can always beat the SQL for all values of the coordination number, while a sensor with long-range interactions does not have this ubiquitous quantum advantage. Second, a long-range Hamiltonian outperforms a nearest-neighbor (NN) Hamiltonian in terms of both estimating precision and system-size scaling. Finally, we observe that the system with long-range interactions can go below the SQL in the presence of a high temperature of the initial state, while sensors having NN interactions cannot. Furthermore, a sensor based on the long-range Ising Hamiltonian proves to be robust against impurities in the magnetic field and when the time-inhomogeneous dephasing noise acts during interaction of the probe with the system.
Quantum metrology is the use of genuinely quantum properties such as entanglement as a resource to outperform classical sensing strategies. Typically, entanglement is created by implementing gate operations or inducing many-body interactions. However, existing sensing schemes with these approaches require accurate control of the probe system such as switching on and off the interaction among qubits, which can be challenging for practical applications. Here, we propose an entanglement-enhanced sensing scheme with an always-on nearest-neighbor interaction between qubits. We adopt the transverse field Ising chain as the probe system, making use of the so-called quantum domino dynamics for the generation of the entangled states. In addition to the advantage that our scheme can be implemented without controlling the interactions, it only requires initialization of the system, projective measurements on a single qubit, and control of the uniform magnetic fields. We can achieve an improved sensitivity beyond the standard quantum limit even under the effect of realistic decoherence.
Quantum sensing utilizes the quantum resources of well-controlled quantum systems to measure small signals with high sensitivity, and has great potential in both fundamental science and concrete applications. Interacting quantum systems have attracted increasing interest in the field of precise measurements, owing to their potential to generate quantum-correlated states and exhibit rich many-body dynamics. These features provide a novel avenue for exploiting quantum resources in sensing applications. Although previous studies have shown that using such systems can improve sensitivity, they mainly focused on measuring individual physical quantities. In experiment, the challenge of using interacting quantum systems to achieve high-precision measurements of multiple physical parameters simultaneously has not been explored to a large extent. In this study, we demonstrate a first realisation of interaction-based multiparameter sensing by using strongly interacting nuclear spins under ultra-low magnetic field conditions. We find that, as the interaction strength among nuclear spins becomes significantly larger than their Larmor frequencies, a different regime emerges where the strongly interacting spins can be simultaneously sensitive to all components of a multidimensional field, such as a three-dimensional magnetic field. Moreover, we observe that the strong interactions between nuclear spins can increase their quantum coherence times to as long as several seconds, thereby improving measurement precision. Our sensor successfully achieves precision measurement of three-dimensional vector magnetic fields with a field sensitivity reaching the order of 10–11 T and an angular resolution as high as 0.2 rad. Importantly, this approach eliminates the need for external reference fields, thereby avoiding calibration errors and technical noise commonly encountered in traditional magnetometry. Experimentally optimized protocol further enhances the sensitivity of the interacting spin-based sensor by up to five orders of magnitude compared with non-interacting or classical schemes. These results demonstrate the enormous potential of interacting spin systems as a powerful platform for high-precision multi-parameter quantum sensing. The techniques developed here pave the way for a new generation of quantum sensors that use intrinsic spin interactions to exceed the traditional sensitivity limits, presenting a promising route toward ultra-sensitive, calibration-free magnetometry in complex environments.
ABSTRACT Quantum sensors are devices that utilize quantum systems' properties to achieve high‐precision measurements of physical quantities, such as magnetic fields and temperature. The metrological precision of quantum sensors refers to their ability to provide accurate and reliable measurements with minimal uncertainty. In this paper, we propose a quantum sensor consisting of multiple atoms arranged in a spin chain, exposed to a thermal bath at a temperature and an external weak magnetic field with a magnetic‐field gradient for quantum thermometry and magnetometry. Employing the Hilbert‐Schmidt speed (HSS), a popular measure of quantum statistical speed to quantify precision limits in parameter estimation theory, we have investigated in detail how the magnetic‐field gradient and spin chain position influence the quantum sensor's metrological capabilities. We show that the performance and precision of our quantum sensor depend on the spin chain position and the magnetic field and its gradient; increasing these factors' values reduces estimation precision and weakens quantum sensor performance. Finally, increasing the number of atoms in a quantum sensing structure improves the accuracy of temperature and field estimation.
Quantum sensors outperform their classical counterparts in their estimation precision, given the same amount of resources. So far, quantum-enhanced sensitivity has been achieved by exploiting the superposition principle. This enhancement has been obtained for particular forms of entangled states, adaptive measurement basis change, critical many-body systems, and steady state of periodically driven systems. Here, we introduce a different approach to obtain quantum-enhanced sensitivity in a many-body probe through utilizing the nature of quantum measurement and its subsequent wave function collapse without demanding prior entanglement. Our protocol consists of a sequence of local measurements, without reinitialization, performed regularly during the evolution of a many-body probe. As the number of sequences increases, the sensing precision is enhanced beyond the standard limit, reaching the Heisenberg bound asymptotically. The benefits of the protocol are multifold as it uses a product initial state and avoids complex initialization (e.g., prior entangled states or critical ground states) and allows for remote quantum sensing.
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.