Abstract Exploring the quantum advantages of various non-classical quantum states in noisy environments is a central subject in quantum sensing. Here we provide a complete picture for the frequency estimation precision of three important states (the Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) state, the maximal spin squeezed state, and the spin coherent state) of a spin-S under both individual dephasing and collective dephasing by general Gaussian noise, ranging from the Markovian limit to the extreme non-Markovian limit. Whether or not the noise is Markovian, the spin coherent state is always worse than the classical scheme under collective dephasing although it is equivalent to the classical scheme under individual dephasing. Moreover, the maximal spin squeezed state always give the best sensing precision (and outperforms the widely studied GHZ state) in all cases. This establishes the general advantage of the spin squeezed state for noisy frequency estimation in many quantum sensing platforms.
Abstract Exploring the quantum advantages of various non-classical quantum states in noisy environments is a central subject in quantum sensing. Here we provide a complete picture for the frequency estimation precision of three important states (the Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) state, the maximal spin squeezed state, and the spin coherent state) of a spin-S under both individual dephasing and collective dephasing by general Gaussian noise, ranging from the Markovian limit to the extreme non-Markovian limit. Whether or not the noise is Markovian, the spin coherent state is always worse than the classical scheme under collective dephasing although it is equivalent to the classical scheme under individual dephasing. Moreover, the maximal spin squeezed state always give the best sensing precision (and outperforms the widely studied GHZ state) in all cases. This establishes the general advantage of the spin squeezed state for noisy frequency estimation in many quantum sensing platforms.
Abstract We study the estimation precision attainable by entanglement-enhanced Ramsey interferometry in the presence of spatiotemporally correlated non-classical noise. Our analysis relies on an exact expression of the reduced density matrix of the qubit probes under general zero-mean Gaussian stationary dephasing, which is established through cumulant-expansion techniques and may be of independent interest in the context of non-Markovian open dynamics. By continuing and expanding our previous work (Beaudoin et al 2018 Phys. Rev. A 98 020102(R)), we analyze the effects of a non-collective coupling regime between the qubit probes and their environment, focusing on two limiting scenarios where the couplings may take only two or a continuum of possible values. In the paradigmatic case of spin–boson dephasing noise from a thermal environment, we find that it is in principle possible to suppress, on average, the effect of spatial correlations by randomizing the location of the probes, as long as enough configurations are sampled where noise correlations are negative. As a result, superclassical precision scaling is asymptotically restored for initial entangled states, including experimentally accessible one-axis spin-squeezed states.
Dephasing noise is a ubiquitous source of decoherence in current atomic sensors. We address the problem of entanglement-assisted frequency estimation subject to classical dephasing noise with full spatial correlations (collective) and arbitrary temporal correlations. Our contributions are threefold. (i) We derive rigorous, state-independent bounds on the achievable estimation precision, showing how they are entirely determined by the short-time behavior of the decoherence function. For temporally uncorrelated (Markovian) dephasing, precision is limited by a probe-independent constant. For temporally correlated stationary noise, the bound approaches the noiseless limit for classical states, precluding any asymptotic quantum advantage. (ii) We show that these scaling bounds are tight, by constructing generalized Ramsey protocols that saturate them. These optimal protocols use squeezing at the input and before readout, both of which are available in state-of-the-art atomic interferometers. Implementing a perfect-echo protocol, which reaches Heisenberg scaling in the absence of noise, remains optimal in this noisy setting, irrespective of the noise temporal correlations. (iii) We prove that arbitrary collective open-loop control cannot lift the no-go for super-classical precision scaling under either Markovian or colored stationary noise, highlighting the detrimental nature of full spatial correlations. In the latter case, temporal correlations may nonetheless enable constant-factor improvements over the standard quantum limit, which may still be important in practical metrological scenarios.
Interactions among sensors can provide, in addition to entanglement, an important resource for boosting the precision in quantum estimation protocols. Dephasing noise, however, remains a leading source of decoherence in state-of-the-art quantum sensing platforms. We analyze the impact of classical collective dephasing with arbitrary temporal correlations on the performance of generalized Ramsey interferometry protocols with quadratic encoding of a target frequency parameter. The optimal asymptotic precision bounds are derived for both product coherent spin states and a class of experimentally relevant entangled spin-squeezed states of N qubit sensors. While, as in linear metrology, entanglement offers no advantage if the noise is Markovian, a precision scaling of N−1 is reachable with classical input states in the quadratic setting, which is improved to N−5/4 when temporal correlations are present and the Zeno regime is accessible. The use of nonclassical spin-squeezed states and a nonlinear readout further allows for an N−3/2 precision scaling, which we prove is asymptotically optimal. We also show how to counter noise-induced bias by introducing a simple ratio estimator, which relies on detecting two suitable system observables, and we show that it remains asymptotically unbiased in the presence of dephasing, without detriment to the achievable precision.
Quantum metrology faces major challenges in noisy environments, where decoherence rapidly degrades useful quantum resources. We investigate the dynamics of the precision limits given by the quantum Fisher information (QFI) for phase estimation under spatially correlated dephasing. We characterize the dynamics of the QFI by the sensitivity and degradation indicators that can be obtained as analytical expressions derived using perturbative theory treatment. These short-time and weak-noise formulas yield analytic insight into how collective-spin moments govern both (i) the noiseless sensitivity and (ii) the leading noise-induced degradation of metrological usefulness. We identify a trade-off that is intrinsic to our commuting encoding-noise structure. We analyze the QFI dynamics for the Gaussian spin state (GSS) superpositions, encompassing spin coherent state (SCS), Dicke state superpositions, spin-squeezed states, and GHZ-like states. Predictions from indicators of the QFI dynamics are compared to both the quantum Cramér--Rao bound and the measurement-specific sensitivity bounds for an optimal parameter and interrogation time under a finite total time resource. When possible, we analytically derive the measurement-specific sensitivity bounds for spin-projection and parity-based measurements.
Recently, a DC magnetometry protocol utilizing N-spin-ensemble superradiance was proposed. This method physically amplifies the acquired signal, suppressing estimation errors from measurement noise and achieving O(1/N) precision scaling when measurement noise dominates quantum fluctuations. However, quantum metrology is generally vulnerable to independent Markovian pure dephasing. For instance, the scaling of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state-based magnetometry deteriorates from O(1/N) to O(1/N). Although pure dephasing likely degrades superradiant sensing, its quantitative impact remains unclear. Here, we investigate the effect of independent Markovian pure dephasing on this protocol using numerical simulations and mean-field analysis. We demonstrate that, in the large-N limit, the estimation error increase is limited to a constant factor. This sharply contrasts with GHZ-state-based sensing, where the error increases by a factor of N. Our analytical solutions elucidate the physical origin of this robustness qualitatively. These findings establish the high robustness of superradiance-based DC magnetometry against independent Markovian pure dephasing.
Entangling distant quantum sensors is a key application of future quantum networks, allowing for the estimation of global functions of local parameters, with precision that is not possible with stand-alone, individual, quantum sensors. However, with this advantage comes the risk of information leakage over the network via possible malicious parties. It is often particularly important that local parameters remain unknown and that only the global function is shared across the network. Recently, the notion of privacy has been introduced in this context, which ensures that only the agreed function of parameters is shared over the network, even when malicious parties control the network itself, whilst maintaining the estimation advantage. In this work, we introduce a noise-robust protocol for private quantum networked sensing, which we realise using a high-fidelity Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state source. We further run a comparative analysis and simulate attacks using three different quantum states, a four-qubit GHZ state, two Bell pairs, and a fully separable state. Our results highlight the clear advantage of GHZ states in maintaining high precision, accuracy, and privacy for the distributed estimation task.