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arXiv:2403.15186

Measuring two temperatures using a single thermometer

Harshit Verma, Fabio Costa

Published Mar 22, 2024• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We consider the question: Is it possible to measure two temperatures simultaneously using a single thermometer? Under common circumstances, where the thermometer can interact with only one bath at a time and the interaction leads to complete thermalization, this is clearly impossible because the final state of the thermometer would be independent of the temperature of the first bath. In this work, we show that this task can indeed be accomplished with the assistance of quantum control. In particular, we consider a composite particle with multiple quantum degrees of freedom (DoF) as a temperature sensor, where one of the DoF -- termed as internal DoF -- is susceptible to the local temperature, thereby functioning as a thermometer, whereas another DoF -- termed external DoF -- is quantum-controlled. We leverage the entanglement between the aforementioned DoF in a composite particle for two-temperature thermometry by preparing the external DoF in a quantum superposition, exposing the internal DoF to two local temperatures. We show that such a particle used in a Mach-Zehnder type interferometer, or a quantum switch -- which allows quantum control over the order of application of quantum channels -- can be used to estimate two temperatures simultaneously, thus affirming our main proposition. For each of these setups, we obtain the variance in the estimated temperatures through the multi-parameter Cramér-Rao bound, and compare their performances based on the range of total variance of the two temperatures estimated. On benchmarking all the setups based on the total variance of the estimated temperatures, we find that a quantum switch with a qudit probe outperforms other setups. On restricting our probe to be a qubit, we find that quantum switch performs equally well as a Mach-Zehnder type interferometer.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2403.15186

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We consider the question: Is it possible to measure two temperatures simultaneously using a single thermometer? Under common circumstances, where the thermometer can interact with only one bath at a time and the interaction leads to complete thermalization, this is clearly impossible because the final state of the thermometer would be independent of the temperature of the first bath. In this work, we show that this task can indeed be accomplished with the assistance of quantum control. In particular, we consider a composite particle with multiple quantum degrees of freedom (DoF) as a temperature sensor, where one of the DoF -- termed as internal DoF -- is susceptible to the local temperature, thereby functioning as a thermometer, whereas another DoF -- termed external DoF -- is quantum-controlled. We leverage the entanglement between the aforementioned DoF in a composite particle for two-temperature thermometry by preparing the external DoF in a quantum superposition, exposing the internal DoF to two local temperatures. We show that such a particle used in a Mach-Zehnder type interferometer, or a quantum switch -- which allows quantum control over the order of application of quantum channels -- can be used to estimate two temperatures simultaneously, thus affirming our main proposition. For each of these setups, we obtain the variance in the estimated temperatures through the multi-parameter Cramér-Rao bound, and compare their performances based on the range of total variance of the two temperatures estimated. On benchmarking all the setups based on the total variance of the estimated temperatures, we find that a quantum switch with a qudit probe outperforms other setups. On restricting our probe to be a qubit, we find that quantum switch performs equally well as a Mach-Zehnder type interferometer.
Temperature estimation, known as thermometry, is a critical sensing task for physical systems operating in the quantum regime. Indeed, thermal fluctuations can significantly degrade quantum coherence. Therefore, accurately determining the system's operating temperature is a crucial first step toward distinguishing thermal noise from other sources of decoherence. In this work, we estimate the unknown temperature of a collection of identical and independent two-level atoms dispersively probed by a single-mode quantized electromagnetic field. In contrast to previous works, we present an analytical sensing analysis demonstrating that the joint atom-field evolution -- without any assumptions or approximations -- can achieve, at best, the standard quantum limit of precision concerning the number of field excitations. To investigate our analysis further, we propose and implement a quantum thermometer based on a nonlinear Mach-Zehnder interferometer, which we realize through quantum digital simulation. Our simulation is highly flexible regarding atomic state preparation, allowing the initialization of atomic ensembles with positive and effective negative temperatures. This makes our platform a promising and versatile testbed for benchmarking thermometric capabilities in current quantum simulators.
A classical thermometer typically works by exchanging energy with the system being measured until it comes to equilibrium, at which point the readout is related to the final energy state of the thermometer. A recent paper noted that with a quantum thermometer consisting of a single spin/qubit, temperature discrimination is better achieved at finite times rather than once equilibration is essentially complete. Furthermore, preparing a qubit thermometer in a state with quantum coherence instead of an incoherent one improves its sensitivity to temperature differences. Implementing a recent proposal for efficiently emulating an arbitrary quantum channel, we use the quantum polarisation state of individual photons as models of "single-qubit thermometers" which evolve for a certain time in contact with a thermal bath. We investigate the optimal thermometer states for temperature discrimination, and the optimal interaction times, confirming that there is a broad regime where quantum coherence provides a significant improvement. We also discuss the more practical question of thermometers composed of a finite number of spins/qubits (greater than one), and characterize the performance of an adaptive protocol for making optimal use of all the qubits.
Accurate measurement at low temperatures is essential for both gaining a fundamental understanding of physical processes and developing technological applications. In this paper, we propose a theoretical framework for quantum temperature sensing in a composite environment with non-Markovian dynamics. Our suggested system uses a single qubit as a temperature sensor to test its sensitivity in calculating the temperature of a composite environment. We show that the temperature sensor's sensitivity can saturate the quantum Cramér-Rao bound by measuring the σ[over ̂]_{z} observable of the probe qubit. Temperature sensing performance is measured using the quantum signal-to-noise ratio. We underline how non-Markovianity can enhance the performance of our thermometers. Furthermore, we emphasize that nonequilibrium conditions do not always result in the best sensitivities in temperature estimation.
Quantum thermometry aims to measure temperature in nanoscale quantum systems, paralleling classical thermometry. However, temperature is not a quantum observable, and most theoretical studies have therefore concentrated on analyzing fundamental precision limits set by the quantum Fisher information through the quantum Cramer-Rao bound. In contrast, whether a direct temperature readout can be achieved in quantum thermometry remains largely unexplored, particularly under the nonequilibrium conditions prevalent in real-world applications. To address this, we develop a direct temperature readout scheme based on a thermodynamic inference strategy. The scheme integrates two conceptual developments: (i) By applying the maximum entropy principle with the thermometer's mean energy as a constraint, we assign a reference temperature to the nonequilibrium thermometer. We demonstrate that this reference temperature outperforms a commonly used effective temperature defined through equilibrium analogy. (ii) We obtain positive semi-definite error functions that lower-bound the deviation of the reference temperature from the true temperature-in analogy to the quantum Cramer-Rao bound for the mean squared error-and vanish upon thermalization with the sample. Combining the reference temperature with these error functions, we introduce a notion of corrected dynamical temperature which furnishes a postprocessed temperature readout under nonequilibrium conditions. This corrected dynamical temperature can be evaluated adaptively without prior knowledge of the actual temperature. We validate the corrected dynamical temperature in a qubit-based thermometer under a range of nonequilibrium initial states, confirming its capability to estimate the true temperature. Importantly, we find that increasing quantum coherence can enhance the precision of this readout.
We provide a detailed description of the quantum interferometric thermometer, which is a device that estimates the temperature of a sample from the measurements of the optical phase. We rigorously analyze the operation of such a device by studying the interaction of the optical probe system prepared in a single-mode Gaussian state with a heated sample modeled as a dissipative thermal reservoir. We find that this approach to thermometry is capable of measuring the temperature of a sample in the nanokelvin regime. Furthermore, we compare the fundamental precision of quantum interferometric thermometers with the theoretical precision offered by the classical idealized pyrometers, which infer the temperature from a measurement of the total thermal radiation emitted by the sample. We find that the interferometric thermometer provides a superior performance in temperature sensing even when compared with this idealized pyrometer. We predict that interferometric thermometers will prove useful for ultraprecise temperature sensing and stabilization of quantum optical experiments based on the nonlinear crystals and atomic vapors.
We address a particular instance where open quantum systems may be used as quantum probes for an emergent property of a complex system, as the temperature of a thermal bath. The inherent fragility of the quantum probes against decoherence is the key feature making the overall scheme very sensitive. The specific setting examined here is that of quantum thermometry, which aims to exploit decoherence as a resource to estimate the temperature of a sample. We focus on temperature estimation for a bosonic bath at equilibrium in the Ohmic regime (ranging from sub-Ohmic to super-Ohmic), by using pairs of qubits in different initial states and interacting with different environments, consisting either of a single thermal bath or of two independent ones at the same temperature. Our scheme involves pure dephasing of the probes, thus avoiding energy exchange with the sample and the consequent perturbation of temperature itself. We discuss the role of correlations among the probes and the presence of a local versus a global bath. We show that entanglement improves thermometry at short times if the two qubits are embedded in a common bath, whereas if the interaction time is not constrained, then coherence rather than entanglement is the key resource in quantum thermometry.