The metrological limits of thermometry operated in nonequilibrium dynamical regimes are analyzed. We consider a finite-dimensional quantum system, employed as a quantum thermometer, in contact with a thermal bath inducing Markovian thermalization dynamics. The quantum thermometer is initialized in a generic quantum state, possibly including quantum coherence with respect to the Hamiltonian basis. We prove that the precision of the thermometer, quantified by the Quantum Fisher Information, is enhanced by the quantum coherence in its initial state. We analytically show this in the specific case of qubit thermometers for which the maximization of the Quantum Fisher Information occurs at a finite time during the transient thermalization dynamics. Such a finite-time precision enhancement can be better than the precision that is achieved asymptotically.
The metrological limits of thermometry operated in nonequilibrium dynamical regimes are analyzed. We consider a finite-dimensional quantum system, employed as a quantum thermometer, in contact with a thermal bath inducing Markovian thermalization dynamics. The quantum thermometer is initialized in a generic quantum state, possibly including quantum coherence with respect to the Hamiltonian basis. We prove that the precision of the thermometer, quantified by the Quantum Fisher Information, is enhanced by the quantum coherence in its initial state. We analytically show this in the specific case of qubit thermometers for which the maximization of the Quantum Fisher Information occurs at a finite time during the transient thermalization dynamics. Such a finite-time precision enhancement can be better than the precision that is achieved asymptotically.
We investigate a nonequilibrium quantum thermometry protocol in which an ensemble of qubits, acting as temperature probes, is weakly coupled to a macroscopic thermal bath. The temperature of the bath, the parameter of interest, is encoded in the dissipator of a Markovian thermalization process. For some relevant initial states, we observe a peak in the Quantum Fisher Information (QFI) during the transient of the thermalization, indicating enhanced sensitivity in early-time dynamics. This effect becomes more pronounced at higher bath temperatures and is further enhanced when the initial reduced state of the qubits has a large ground-state population and/or it is highly coherent. We also focus on the role of initial quantum correlations in the thermometric performance, which emerge as a central feature of this work. We find strong numerical evidence that, given same single-qubit reduced states, the inclusion of quantum correlations among the qubits of the ensemble always yields an enhanced QFI. Moreover, even if none of the considered states outperform the (pure, separable) ground state, maximally entangled states display QFIs values remarkably close to the standard quantum limit when probing extremely hot thermal baths. Finally, although the Markovian dynamics does not permit superlinear scaling of the QFI with the number of probes, we identify the most effective initial states for designing high-precision quantum thermometers within this setting. We also provide concrete guidelines for experimental implementations.
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.
Abstract Quantum thermometry refers to the study of measuring ultra-low temperatures in quantum systems. The precision of such a quantum thermometer is limited by the degree to which temperature can be estimated by quantum measurements. More precisely, the maximal precision is given by the inverse of the quantum Fisher information. In the present analysis, we show that quantum thermometers that are described by nonlinear Schrödinger equations allow for a significantly enhanced precision, that means larger quantum Fisher information. This is demonstrated for a variety of pedagogical scenarios consisting of single and two-qubits systems. The enhancement in precision is indicated by non-vanishing quantum speed limits, which originate in the fact that the thermal, Gibbs state is typically not invariant under the nonlinear equations of motion.
We unveil a fundamental temperature bias in transient quantum thermometry under Markovian dynamics. For qubit probes evolving in a thermal Markovian environment, we prove that transient precision beyond the steady-state benchmark can be achieved if and only if the probe is initially colder than the bath temperature to be estimated. Cold probes are therefore both necessary and sufficient for enhanced transient precision in the Markovian regime. We then investigate the fate of this bias in the presence of environmental memory. In particular, in a non-Markovian scenario generated by an auxiliary-mediated system-bath coupling, we find that the cold-probe requirement for enhanced transient precision persists, indicating that the temperature bias survives certain forms of memory effects. In contrast, for a non-Markovian collisional model with perfect swap interactions between bath ancillas, transient enhancement is entirely absent regardless of the probe's initial temperature. This indicates that strong non-Markovianity can lead to the complete disappearance of the enhancement effect, placing hot and cold probes on equal footing, with neither capable of achieving enhanced precision in this regime.
Abstract High-precision low-temperature thermometry is a challenge for experimental quantum physics and quantum sensing. Here we consider a thermometer modeled by a dynamically-controlled multilevel quantum probe in contact with a bath. Dynamical control in the form of periodic modulation of the energy-level spacings of the quantum probe can dramatically increase the maximum accuracy bound of low-temperatures estimation, by maximizing the relevant quantum Fisher information. As opposed to the diverging relative error bound at low temperatures in conventional quantum thermometry, periodic modulation of the probe allows for low-temperature thermometry with temperature-independent relative error bound. The proposed approach may find diverse applications related to precise probing of the temperature of many-body quantum systems in condensed matter and ultracold gases, as well as in different branches of quantum metrology beyond thermometry, for example in precise probing of different Hamiltonian parameters in many-body quantum critical systems.
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.