We investigate the dephasing dynamics of a qubit as an effective mechanism for estimating the temperature of its surrounding environment for different symmetrizes. Our approach is fundamentally quantum, leveraging the qubit's susceptibility to decoherence without necessitating thermal equilibrium with the system under study. We also examine how symmetry properties affect the accuracy of information retrieval and the robustness of quantum information storage in such systems, highlighting their potential advantages in mitigating decoherence effects. The optimization of quantum Fisher information is performed with respect to both the interaction duration and the environmental temperature, focusing on Ohmic-like spectral density environments. Furthermore, we explicitly identify the optimal qubit measurement that attains the quantum Cramer-Rao bound for precision. Our findings reveal that optimal estimation arises from a complex interplay between the qubit's dephasing dynamics and the Ohmic characteristics of the environment with a particular focus on non-Hermitian systems that exhibit enhanced resilience to decoherence. Notably, optimal estimation does not occur when the qubit reaches a stationary state nor under conditions of complete dephasing.
We investigate the dephasing dynamics of a qubit as an effective mechanism for estimating the temperature of its surrounding environment for different symmetrizes. Our approach is fundamentally quantum, leveraging the qubit's susceptibility to decoherence without necessitating thermal equilibrium with the system under study. We also examine how symmetry properties affect the accuracy of information retrieval and the robustness of quantum information storage in such systems, highlighting their potential advantages in mitigating decoherence effects. The optimization of quantum Fisher information is performed with respect to both the interaction duration and the environmental temperature, focusing on Ohmic-like spectral density environments. Furthermore, we explicitly identify the optimal qubit measurement that attains the quantum Cramer-Rao bound for precision. Our findings reveal that optimal estimation arises from a complex interplay between the qubit's dephasing dynamics and the Ohmic characteristics of the environment with a particular focus on non-Hermitian systems that exhibit enhanced resilience to decoherence. Notably, optimal estimation does not occur when the qubit reaches a stationary state nor under conditions of complete dephasing.
We investigate the dephasing dynamics of a qubit as an effective mechanism for estimating the temperature of its surrounding environment for different symmetries. Our approach is fundamentally quantum, leveraging the qubit’s susceptibility to decoherence without necessitating thermal equilibrium with the system under study. We also examine how symmetry properties affect the accuracy of information retrieval and the robustness of quantum information storage in such systems, highlighting their potential advantages in mitigating decoherence effects. The optimization of quantum Fisher information is performed with respect to both the interaction duration and the environmental temperature, focusing on Ohmic-like spectral density environments. Furthermore, we explicitly identify the optimal qubit measurement that attains the quantum Cramér–Rao bound for precision. Our findings reveal that optimal estimation arises from a complex interplay between the qubit’s dephasing dynamics and the Ohmic characteristics of the environment, with a particular focus on non-Hermitian systems that exhibit enhanced resilience to decoherence. We examine the decoherence dynamics of a two-level spin system governed by an anti-parity-time-symmetric Hamiltonian. The obtained results are systematically compared with those corresponding to both PT-symmetric and conventional Hermitian qubit models. To this end, we first employ a time-dependent Dyson transformation to derive the exact analytical evolution of a generic non-Hermitian qubit interacting with an external environment. The formalism is then applied to the particular case of an anti-PT-symmetric qubit. Our analysis reveals that the coherence of the non-Hermitian-symmetric qubit is preserved over significantly longer times, as evidenced by the slower decay of its decoherence function relative to its Hermitian counterparts. Furthermore, the generation of entanglement entropy is found to proceed at a reduced rate, indicating a more gradual buildup of system–environment correlations. In addition, the anti-PT-symmetric configuration exhibits substantially enhanced quantum Fisher information together with a smaller variance than those observed in the corresponding PT-symmetric and Hermitian systems. These findings highlight the remarkable robustness of anti-PT-symmetric qubits against environmental decoherence and suggest that they constitute a promising platform for the implementation of quantum information processing and quantum computing protocols.
Abstract Quantum probing is the art of exploiting simple quantum systems interacting with a complex environment to extract precise information about some environmental parameters, e.g. the temperature of the environment or its spectral density. Here we analyze the performance of a single-qubit probe in characterizing Ohmic bosonic environments at thermal equilibrium. In particular, we analyze the effects of tuning the interaction Hamiltonian between the probe and the environment, going beyond the traditional paradigm of pure dephasing. In the weak-coupling and short-time regime, we address the dynamics of the probe analytically, whereas numerical simulations are employed in the strong coupling and long-time regime. We then evaluate the quantum Fisher information for the estimation of the cutoff frequency and the temperature of the environment. Our results provide clear evidence that pure dephasing is not optimal, unless we focus attention to short times. In particular, we found several working regimes where the presence of a transverse interaction improves the maximum attainable precision, i.e. it increases the quantum Fisher information. We also explore the role of the initial state of the probe and of the probe characteristic frequency in determining the estimation precision, thus providing quantitative guidelines to design optimized detection to characterize bosonic environments at the quantum level.
We investigate multiparameter quantum estimation in a Raman-coupled two-qubit system at thermal equilibrium. Analytical expressions for the quantum Fisher information matrix are derived to characterize the simultaneous estimation of the temperature and Raman coupling strength. The corresponding quantum Cramér--Rao bounds are obtained and compared with those of individual estimation strategies. Our results reveal optimal operating regimes determined by the interplay between thermal fluctuations and coherent interactions. In particular, quantum thermometry exhibits a well-defined optimal temperature window, whereas the estimation of the Raman coupling strength is significantly enhanced in the low-temperature and weak-coupling regime. We further show that simultaneous estimation can outperform independent estimation within appropriate parameter regions, highlighting the advantages of multiparameter quantum metrology. These results provide analytical insights into the ultimate precision limits of Raman-coupled two-qubit systems and identify promising operating regimes for quantum sensing and quantum thermometry.
Quantum thermometry leveraging quantum sensors is investigated with an emphasis on fundamental precision bounds derived from quantum estimation theory. The proposed sensing platform consists of two dissimilar qubits coupled via capacitor, which induce quantum oscillations in the presence of a thermal environment. Thermal equilibrium states are modeled using the Gibbs distribution. The precision limits are assessed through the Quantum Fisher Information (QFI) and the Hilbert-Schmidt Speed (HSS), serving as stringent criteria for sensor sensitivity. Systematic analysis of the dependence of QFI and HSS on tunable parameters -such as qubit energies and coupling strengths- provides optimization pathways for maximizing temperature sensitivity. Furthermore, we explore two distinct quantum thermometry paradigms: (I) local temperature estimation directly performed by Alice, who possesses the quantum sensor interfacing with the thermal bath, and (II) remote temperature estimation conducted by Bob, facilitated via quantum teleportation. In the latter scenario, temperature information encoded in the qubit state is transmitted through a single-qubit quantum thermal teleportation protocol. Our findings indicate that direct measurement yields superior sensitivity compared to remote estimation, primarily due to the inherent advantage of direct sensor-environment interaction. The analysis reveals that increasing Josephson energies diminishes sensor sensitivity, whereas augmenting the mutual coupling strength between the qubits enhances it.
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.
AbstractQuantum probing is the art of exploiting simple quantum systems interacting with a complex environment to extract precise information about some environmental parameters, e.g. the temperature of the environment or its spectral density. Here we analyze the performance of a single-qubit probe in characterizing Ohmic bosonic environments at thermal equilibrium. In particular, we analyze the effects of tuning the interaction Hamiltonian between the probe and the environment, going beyond the traditional paradigm of pure dephasing. In the weak-coupling and short-time regime, we address the dynamics of the probe analytically, whereas numerical simulations are employed in the strong coupling and long-time regime. We then evaluate the quantum Fisher information for the estimation of the cutoff frequency and the temperature of the environment. Our results provide clear evidence that pure dephasing is not optimal, unless we focus attention to short times. In particular, we found several working regimes where the presence of a transverse interaction improves the maximum attainable precision, i.e. it increases the quantum Fisher information. We also explore the role of the initial state of the probe and of the probe characteristic frequency in determining the estimation precision, thus providing quantitative guidelines to design optimized detection to characterize bosonic environments at the quantum level.