A quantum sensing network is used to simultaneously detect and measure physical quantities, such as magnetic fields, at different locations. However, there is a risk that the measurement data is leaked to the third party during the communication. Many theoretical and experimental efforts have been made to realize a secure quantum sensing network where a high level of security is guaranteed. In this paper, we propose a protocol to estimate statistical quantities of the target fields at different places without knowing individual value of the target fields. We generate an entanglement between L quantum sensors, let the quantum sensor interact with local fields, and perform specific measurements on them. By calculating the quantum Fisher information to estimate the individual value of the magnetic fields, we show that we cannot obtain any information of the value of the individual fields in the limit of large L. On the other hand, in our protocol, we can estimate theoretically any moment of the field distribution by measuring a specific observable and evaluated relative uncertainty of kth ( k=1,2,3,4) order moment. Our results are a significant step towards using a quantum sensing network with security inbuilt.
A quantum sensing network is used to simultaneously detect and measure physical quantities, such as magnetic fields, at different locations. However, there is a risk that the measurement data is leaked to the third party during the communication. Many theoretical and experimental efforts have been made to realize a secure quantum sensing network where a high level of security is guaranteed. In this paper, we propose a protocol to estimate statistical quantities of the target fields at different places without knowing individual value of the target fields. We generate an entanglement between L quantum sensors, let the quantum sensor interact with local fields, and perform specific measurements on them. By calculating the quantum Fisher information to estimate the individual value of the magnetic fields, we show that we cannot obtain any information of the value of the individual fields in the limit of large L. On the other hand, in our protocol, we can estimate theoretically any moment of the field distribution by measuring a specific observable and evaluated relative uncertainty of kth ( k=1,2,3,4) order moment. Our results are a significant step towards using a quantum sensing network with security inbuilt.
Abstract A quantum sensing network is used to simultaneously detect and measure physical quantities, such as magnetic fields, at different locations. However, there is a risk that the measurement data is leaked to the third party during the communication. Many theoretical and experimental efforts have been made to realize a secure quantum sensing network where a high level of security is guaranteed. In this paper, we propose a protocol to estimate statistical quantities of the target fields at different places without knowing individual value of the target fields. We generate an entanglement between L quantum sensors, let the quantum sensor interact with local fields, and perform specific measurements on them. By calculating the quantum Fisher information to estimate the individual value of the magnetic fields, we show that we cannot obtain any information of the value of the individual fields in the limit of large L. On the other hand, in our protocol, we can estimate theoretically any moment of the field distribution by measuring a specific observable and evaluated relative uncertainty of kth ( k = 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ) order moment. Our results are a significant step towards using a quantum sensing network with security inbuilt.
Quantum sensing is a promising technology capable of demonstrating clear advantage over comparable classical techniques for precise measurement. One application of quantum sensing is in function estimation, which can be done using a network of entangled quantum sensors, allowing for measurements with greater optimal sensitivity than unentangled sensing protocols. In cases where quantum sensor networks will be used to measure data that should remain private (e.g., biomedical data), it is imperative that these protocols include a privacy mechanism to hide sensitive information. In this work, we show that entangled sensor networks are vulnerable to certain privacy-violating attacks. To mitigate these attacks, we introduce secure sensing protocols endowed with differential privacy. We reconcile differential privacy with retaining Heisenberg-limited scaling, and introduce several protocols achieving varying balances between the two. We show that our main protocol, an n-node network sensing protocol that injects noise directly into the sensing Hamiltonian, exhibits a tradeoff between the desirable O(1/n2) Heisenberg scaling of the mean-squared error of the function estimate and the level of privacy attainable. Under assumptions on the network (a common source of randomness and a constant fraction of honest parties), we show that this protocol is locally implementable and achieves (O(1),δ)-differential privacy for arbitrarily small δ while retaining Heisenberg scaling of the mean-squared error. We prove that our protocols are resilient to attacks by broad classes of classical and quantum adversaries, and find advantages in the privacy-utility tradeoff when using quantum techniques.
A lot of attention has been paid to a quantum-sensing network for detecting magnetic fields in different positions. Recently, cryptographic quantum metrology was investigated where the information of the magnetic fields is transmitted in a secure way. However, sometimes, the positions where non-zero magnetic fields are generated could carry important information. Here, we propose an anonymous quantum sensor where an information of positions having non-zero magnetic fields is hidden after measuring magnetic fields with a quantum-sensing network. Suppose that agents are located in different positions and they have quantum sensors. After the quantum sensors are entangled, the agents implement quantum sensing that provides a phase information if non-zero magnetic fields exist, and POVM measurement is performed on quantum sensors. Importantly, even if the outcomes of the POVM measurement is stolen by an eavesdropper, information of the positions with non-zero magnetic fields is still unknown for the eavesdropper in our protocol. In addition, we evaluate the sensitivity of our proposed quantum sensors by using Fisher information when there are at most two positions having non-zero magnetic fields. We show that the sensitivity is finite unless these two (non-zero) magnetic fields have exactly the same amplitude. Our results pave the way for new applications of quantum-sensing network.
The distribution of quantum sensors on quantum networks is a key enabler of quantum technologies in interferometry, gravimetry, timekeeping, biological monitoring, and beyond. Yet, guaranteeing the security of these distributed sensors over noisy, insecure networks remains a formidable challenge. Previous efforts to combine quantum metrology and cryptography have encountered an apparently unavoidable tension, proposing bounds for security which are only loosely tied to the achievable measurement performance.
Here we introduce a quantum remote sensing protocol that can rigorously certify privacy and integrity of the estimation. By employing offline bilateral Pauli-twirling, our approach forces the effective quantum channel into a Bell-diagonal form, independently of the attack. Surprisingly, this also preserves metrological sensitivity without introducing additional experimental overhead. Relying solely on public communication alongside an insecure quantum link, the protocol enables legitimate users to exactly quantify their estimation error relative to an eavesdropper controlling the channels.
We experimentally demonstrate this framework by estimating an optical phase using entangled photons, observing that the users' precision consistently surpasses the eavesdropper's capabilities across a broad parameter regime. By unifying quantum cryptography and metrology, our results provide a practical pathway to achieve simultaneous quantum-limited precision and rigorous information security in real-world quantum networks.
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.
Privacy is a fundamental requirement in distributed quantum sensor networks, where multiple clients estimate spatially distributed parameters using shared quantum resources while interacting with potentially untrusted servers. Despite its importance, existing privacy conditions rely on idealized quantum bounds and do not fully capture the operational constraints imposed by realistic measurements. Here, we introduce a universal operational privacy framework for distributed quantum sensing, formulated in terms of the experimentally accessible Fisher information matrix and applicable to arbitrary protocols characterized by singular information structures. The proposed condition provides a protocol-independent criterion, ensuring that no information about individual parameters is accessible to untrusted parties. We further experimentally demonstrate that a distributed quantum sensing protocol employing fewer photons than the number of estimated parameters simultaneously satisfies the universal privacy condition and achieves Heisenberg-limited precision. Our results establish universal operational constraints governing privacy in distributed quantum sensor networks and provide a foundation for practical, privacy-preserving quantum sensing beyond full-rank regimes.