High-sensitivity accelerometers and gravimeters, achieving the ultimate limits of measurement sensitivity are key tools for advancing both fundamental and applied physics. While numerous platforms have been proposed to achieve this goal, from atom interferometers to optomechanical systems, all of these studies neglect the effects of intrinsic quantum uncertainty in time estimation. Starting from the Hamiltonian of a generic linear quantum sensor, we derive the two-parameter quantum Fisher information matrix and establish the corresponding Cram'er-Rao bound, treating time as an uncertain (nuisance) parameter. Our analysis reveals a fundamental coupling between time and signal estimation that inherently degrades measurement sensitivity, with the standard single-parameter quantum limit recovered only at specific interrogation times or under special decoupling conditions. We then apply these results to an optomechanical gravimeter and explicitly derive an optimal decoupling condition under which the effects of time uncertainty are averaged out in a continuous measurement scheme. Our approach is general and can be readily extended to a broad class of quantum sensors.
High-sensitivity accelerometers and gravimeters, achieving the ultimate limits of measurement sensitivity are key tools for advancing both fundamental and applied physics. While numerous platforms have been proposed to achieve this goal, from atom interferometers to optomechanical systems, all of these studies neglect the effects of intrinsic quantum uncertainty in time estimation. Starting from the Hamiltonian of a generic linear quantum sensor, we derive the two-parameter quantum Fisher information matrix and establish the corresponding Cram'er-Rao bound, treating time as an uncertain (nuisance) parameter. Our analysis reveals a fundamental coupling between time and signal estimation that inherently degrades measurement sensitivity, with the standard single-parameter quantum limit recovered only at specific interrogation times or under special decoupling conditions. We then apply these results to an optomechanical gravimeter and explicitly derive an optimal decoupling condition under which the effects of time uncertainty are averaged out in a continuous measurement scheme. Our approach is general and can be readily extended to a broad class of quantum sensors.
We study quantum gravimetry when the interrogation time carries intrinsic uncertainty, motivated by a fundamental limit on temporal resolution associated with the energy--time uncertainty relation. For linearly gravity-coupled gravimeters, we obtain the effective gravity information by profiling the interrogation time from the two-parameter quantum Fisher information (QFI) matrix. In this class, the time-information block is quadratic in the gravitational parameter, and for quadratic background dynamics, the gravity--time cross term becomes affine in g. These properties yield a normalized expression for the fraction of standard single-parameter gravity QFI that remains once interrogation time is treated as a nuisance parameter, with an affine numerator and a Lorentzian denominator. We work out these results in three benchmark models: a freely falling Gaussian wavepacket, the Kasevich--Chu light-pulse atom interferometer, and an idealized closed-unitary optomechanical model. The Gaussian free-fall benchmark yields an exact closed-form expression for the effective gravity information and shows explicitly how nuisance-time profiling suppresses the momentum-spread-dependent part of the standard single-parameter gravity QFI. In the Kasevich--Chu interferometer, internal state population readout gives a rank-deficient measured two-parameter geometry unless independent timing information is supplied, whereas full access to the final motional and internal states restores a full-rank geometry with retention controlled by the competition between initial velocity spread and gravitationally accumulated motion. In atom-interferometric benchmarks, the framework yields explicit conditions for minimizing nuisance-time information loss, together with corresponding constraints on momentum spread, spatial localization, and long-interrogation-time operation.
Critical quantum metrology relies on the extreme sensitivity of a system's eigenstates near the critical point of a quantum phase transition to Hamiltonian perturbations. This means that these eigenstates are extremely sensitive to all the parameters of the Hamiltonian. In realistic settings, there is always some degree of uncertainty in the control parameters used to tune the system to criticality. These uncertainties, while not the target of estimation, can significantly affect the attainable precision, effectively acting as nuisance parameters in the estimation process. Despite being a practically relevant source of noise, their impact on critical metrology has been largely overlooked. In this work we present a general framework that interpolates between single- and multiparameter estimation settings, enabling a systematic analysis of how such uncertainties influence sensitivity. We apply this framework to the paradigmatic transverse field Ising and Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick models, explicitly demonstrating how uncertainty in control parameters affects the metrological performance of critical sensors. For finite-size systems, we identify a fundamental trade-off between robustness to uncertainty and the ability to retain a quantum advantage at the critical point. Our results contribute to a deeper understanding of the practical limitations of critical quantum metrology and provide a route toward its more resilient implementation.
The performance of a quantum sensor is fundamentally limited by noise. This noise is particularly damaging when it becomes correlated with the readout of a target signal, caused by fluctuations of the sensor's operating parameters. These uncertainties limit sensitivity in a way that can be understood with multiparameter estimation theory. We develop a new approach, adaptable to any quantum platform, for designing robust sensing protocols that leverages multiparameter estimation theory and machine learning to decorrelate a target signal from fluctuating off-target (``nuisance'') parameters. Central to our approach is the identification of information-theoretic goals that guide a machine learning agent through an otherwise intractably large space of potential sensing protocols. As an illustrative example, we apply our approach to a reconfigurable optical lattice to design an accelerometer whose sensitivity is decorrelated from lattice depth noise. We demonstrate the effect of decorrelation on outcomes and Bayesian inferencing through statistical analysis in parameter space, and discuss implications for future applications in quantum metrology and computing.
The quantum Cramér-Rao bound (QCRB) sets a fundamental limit for the measurement of classical signals with detectors operating in the quantum regime. Using linear-response theory and the Heisenberg uncertainty relation, we derive a general condition for achieving such a fundamental limit. When applied to classical displacement measurements with a test mass, this condition leads to an explicit connection between the QCRB and the standard quantum limit that arises from a tradeoff between the measurement imprecision and quantum backaction; the QCRB can be viewed as an outcome of a quantum nondemolition measurement with the backaction evaded. Additionally, we show that the test mass is more a resource for improving measurement sensitivity than a victim of the quantum backaction, which suggests a new approach to enhancing the sensitivity of a broad class of sensors. We illustrate these points with laser interferometric gravitational-wave detectors.
Precision measurements of gravitational acceleration, or gravimetry, enable the testing of physical theories and find numerous applications in geodesy and space exploration. By harnessing quantum effects, high-precision sensors can achieve sensitivity and accuracy far beyond their classical counterparts when using the same number of sensing resources. Therefore, developing gravimeters with quantum-enhanced sensitivity is essential for advancing theoretical and applied physics. While novel quantum gravimeters have already been proposed for this purpose, the ultimate sensing precision, known as the Heisenberg limit, remains largely elusive. Here, we demonstrate that the gravimetry precision of a conditional displacement spin-mechanical system increases quadratically with the number of spins: a Heisenberg-limited spin-mechanical gravimeter. In general, the gravitational parameter is dynamically encoded into the entire entangled spin-mechanical probe. However, at some specific times, the mechanical degree of freedom disentangles from the spin subsystem, transferring all the information about the gravitational acceleration to the spin subsystem. Hence, we prove that a feasible spin magnetization measurement can reveal the ultimate gravimetry precision at such disentangling times. We predict an absolute gravimetry uncertainty of 10 − 11 m/s 2 to 10 − 6 m/s 2 , without relying on free-fall methodologies, ground-state cooling of the mechanical object, and robust against spin-mechanical coupling anisotropies.
Over the past two decades there has been considerable and growing interest in the development of quantum sensors. These are devices whose function is based on quantum systems and offer the potential for unprecedented sensitivity in a range of measurements. This PhD has developed three different theoretical projects examining the sensitivity improvement of these devices with a focus on atom gravimeters, which are particularly useful for measuring inertial quantities such as rotations and accelerations. We have investigated the theoretical sensitivity limits of atom gravimeters and we examined different entanglement-enhanced schemes, in order to increase their performance. To start with, we used tools from estimation theory, in order to quantify the performance of current atom gravimeters. We showed that there is additional metrological potential in these devices, and that we can extract all this information by making innovative measurements, other than the conventional population difference measurement. Our analysis introduces a new way of evaluating the performance of atom gravimeters that could influence future sensor designs. In addition, we examined entanglement-enhanced schemes, in order to improve the performance of quantum sensors, which are limited by the atom shot-noise limit. We considered entanglement generation schemes based on atom-light interactions, in order for them to be compatible with atom interferometer based sensors. More particularly, we examined a quantum non-demolition measurement scheme and an one-axis-twisting scheme with cavity feedback. In both schemes we incorporated relevant decoherence mechanisms and we analysed how the optimum parameter regime can be found, by balancing between coherence loss and spin-squeezing strength. We also examined several modifications in both models that could offer additional improvements. The results presented here could have a big impact on the future design and understanding of atom-based quantum-enhanced sensors.