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Hamiltonian estimation in the Kitaev chain with tunable long-range interactions

Jing Yang, Shengshi Pang, Andrew N. Jordan

Published Apr 14, 2021• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

With optimal control theory, we compute the maximum possible quantum Fisher information about the interaction parameter for a Kitaev chain with tunable long-range interactions in the many-particle Hilbert space. We consider a wide class of decay laws for the long-range interaction and develop rigorous asymptotic analysis for the scaling of the quantum Fisher information with respect to the number of lattice sites. In quantum metrology nonlinear many-body interactions can enhance the precision of quantum parameter estimation to surpass the Heisenberg scaling, which is quadratic in the number of lattice sites. Here for the estimation of the long-range interaction strength, we observe the Heisenberg to super-Heisenberg transition in such a $linear$ model, related to the slow decaying long-range correlations in the model. Finally, we show that quantum control is able to improve the prefactor rather than the scaling exponent of the quantum Fisher information. This is in contrast with the case where quantum control has been shown to improve the scaling of quantum Fisher information with the probe time. Our results clarify the role of quantum controls and long-range interactions in many-body quantum metrology.

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With optimal control theory, we compute the maximum possible quantum Fisher information about the interaction parameter for a Kitaev chain with tunable long-range interactions in the many-particle Hilbert space. We consider a wide class of decay laws for the long-range interaction and develop rigorous asymptotic analysis for the scaling of the quantum Fisher information with respect to the number of lattice sites. In quantum metrology nonlinear many-body interactions can enhance the precision of quantum parameter estimation to surpass the Heisenberg scaling, which is quadratic in the number of lattice sites. Here for the estimation of the long-range interaction strength, we observe the Heisenberg to super-Heisenberg transition in such a linearlinearlinear model, related to the slow decaying long-range correlations in the model. Finally, we show that quantum control is able to improve the prefactor rather than the scaling exponent of the quantum Fisher information. This is in contrast with the case where quantum control has been shown to improve the scaling of quantum Fisher information with the probe time. Our results clarify the role of quantum controls and long-range interactions in many-body quantum metrology.
In quantum metrology, nonlinear many-body interactions can enhance the precision of Hamiltonian parameter estimation to surpass the Heisenberg scaling. Here, we consider the the estimation of the interaction strength in linear systems with long-range interactions and using the Kitaev chains as a case study, we establish a transition from the Heisenberg to super-Heisenberg scaling in the quantum Fisher information by varying the interaction range. We further show that quantum control can improve the prefactor of the quantum Fisher information. Our results explore the advantage of optimal quantum control and long-range interactions in many-body quantum metrology.
Abstract Long-range interacting quantum systems are useful for improving the performance of various applications of quantum technologies. In this work, we carry out a detailed analysis of how the long-range interaction affects the measurement precision in critical quantum metrology. We focus on the ground state, as it not only provides a theoretical foundation for studying dynamical critical quantum metrology, but also has great potential for practical applications. By employing the paradigmatic model of a Kitaev chain with power-law decaying interaction, we investigate the impacts of long-range interaction on the critical sensing for the scenarios with and without uncertainty in system parameters. We show that the long-range interaction can be used as a valuable resource for enhancing the sensitivity of critical parameter estimation in both scenarios. Our findings not only provide more insights into the features of the long-range interacting systems, but also verify the usefulness of long-range interacting systems in quantum metrology
We investigate the physical requirements to reach the ultimate limits of ground-state metrology -- i.e., the estimation of an unknown parameter θθθ of an NNN-body Hamiltonian via measurements on its ground state -- using many-body probes featuring either short-range or long-range interactions. We characterize the conditions to saturate two fundamental limits of the quantum Fisher information FθF_θFθ​: the static ground-state bound Fθ≲N2/Δ2F_θ\lesssim N^2/Δ^2Fθ​≲N2/Δ2, where ΔΔΔ is the spectral gap, and the dynamical Heisenberg limit Fθ≲N2τ2F_θ\lesssim N^2 τ^2Fθ​≲N2τ2, where τττ is the total protocol duration. To saturate the static limit, we argue that short-range interacting systems require a spectral gap that closes with NNN. At second-order quantum critical points this leads to a universal condition on the critical exponents, ν(d+z)=1ν(d+z)=1ν(d+z)=1, which can be approached arbitrarily closely, as we show for the XXZ chain; cat-like ground states at first-order transitions provide an alternative route to static optimality. In contrast, we find that all-to-all interacting models can achieve optimality even in gapped regimes. Furthermore, reaching the dynamical bound is tightly related to the ground-state preparation time; we demonstrate that its optimal, inverse-gap profile can be obtained via local adiabatic protocols. By analyzing paradigmatic systems -- the transverse-field Ising chain, the XXZ chain, a squeezing Hamiltonian, and the two-mode Bose-Hubbard model -- we identify specific many-body probes capable of approaching both limits. Overall, our results provide a theoretical basis for the design of (local) many-body ground-state sensors operating at the ultimate limits of quantum precision.
The Heisenberg scaling is an ultimate precision limit of parameter estimation allowed by the principles of quantum mechanics, with no counterpart in the classical realm, and has been a long-pursued goal in quantum metrology. It has been known that interactions between the probes can help reach the Heisenberg scaling without entanglement. In this paper, we show that interactions between the probes and the additional dimensions of an ancillary system may also increase the precision of parameter estimation to surpass the standard quantum limit and attain the Heisenberg scaling without entanglement, if the measurement scheme is properly designed. The quantum Fisher information exhibits periodic patterns over the evolution time, implying the existence of optimal time points for measurements that can maximize the quantum Fisher information. By implementing optimizations over the Hamiltonian, the initial states of the probes and the ancillary system, the interaction strength, and the time points for measurements, our protocol achieves the Heisenberg scaling for the parameter of the probe Hamiltonian, in terms of both evolution time and probe number. Our protocol features two aspects: (i) the Heisenberg scaling can be achieved by a product state of the probes and (ii) mere local measurement on the ancilla is sufficient, both of which reduce the quantum resources and the implementation complexity to achieve the Heisenberg scaling. The paper is concluded by the investigation of the effects of noise on this protocol.
We develop a variational principle to determine the quantum controls and initial state that optimizes the quantum Fisher information, the quantity characterizing the precision in quantum metrology. When the set of available controls is limited, the exact optimal initial state and the optimal controls are, in general, dependent on the probe time, a feature missing in the unrestricted case. Yet, for time-independent Hamiltonians with restricted controls, the problem can be approximately reduced to the unconstrained case via Floquet engineering. In particular, we find for magnetometry with a time-independent spin chain containing three-body interactions, even when the controls are restricted to one- and two-body interaction, that the Heisenberg scaling can still be approximately achieved. Our results open the door to investigate quantum metrology under a limited set of available controls, of relevance to many-body quantum metrology in realistic scenarios.
Quantum metrology enhances the sensitivity of parameter estimation using the distinctive resources of quantum mechanics such as entanglement. It has been shown that the precision of estimating an overall multiplicative factor of a Hamiltonian can be increased to exceed the classical limit, yet little is known about estimating a general Hamiltonian parameter. In this paper, we study this problem in detail. We find that the scaling of the estimation precision with the number of systems can always be optimized to the Heisenberg limit, while the time scaling can be quite different from that of estimating an overall multiplicative factor. We derive the generator of local parameter translation on the unitary evolution operator of the Hamiltonian, and use it to evaluate the estimation precision of the parameter and establish a general upper bound on the quantum Fisher information. The results indicate that the quantum Fisher information generally can be divided into two parts: one is quadratic in time, while the other oscillates with time. When the eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian do not depend on the parameter, the quadratic term vanishes, and the quantum Fisher information will be bounded in this case. To illustrate the results, we give an example of estimating a parameter of a magnetic field by measuring a spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​ particle and compare the results for estimating the amplitude and the direction of the magnetic field.