Quantum metrology studies the use of quantum mechanical systems as measurement devices or sensors. Surprisingly, preparing a sensor in an entangled state can enhance measurement precision. The simplest protocols for entanglement enhancement sense only small changes in a quantity. The range of values over which a measurement protocol works is called its dynamic range. For many types of sensors we require end-to-end protocols that describe how to use entanglement to achieve enhanced precision over a large dynamic range. In this dissertation, we describe two approaches to achieving entanglement-enhanced sensing over a large dynamic range. The first approach uses entangling resources in a way that circumvents the dynamic-range limitation by numerically optimizing variational circuits. Our protocols show improved performance at fixed circuit depth compared to previous variational-circuit-based approaches, and the generality of our approach reveals several generic features of such protocols. The second approach uses adaptivity to first obtain a preliminary estimate of the quantity and then iteratively refines it. In particular, we describe the use of one-axis twisting dynamics at each stage of this protocol to minimize the expected estimation error.
Quantum metrology studies the use of quantum mechanical systems as measurement devices or sensors. Surprisingly, preparing a sensor in an entangled state can enhance measurement precision. The simplest protocols for entanglement enhancement sense only small changes in a quantity. The range of values over which a measurement protocol works is called its dynamic range. For many types of sensors we require end-to-end protocols that describe how to use entanglement to achieve enhanced precision over a large dynamic range. In this dissertation, we describe two approaches to achieving entanglement-enhanced sensing over a large dynamic range. The first approach uses entangling resources in a way that circumvents the dynamic-range limitation by numerically optimizing variational circuits. Our protocols show improved performance at fixed circuit depth compared to previous variational-circuit-based approaches, and the generality of our approach reveals several generic features of such protocols. The second approach uses adaptivity to first obtain a preliminary estimate of the quantity and then iteratively refines it. In particular, we describe the use of one-axis twisting dynamics at each stage of this protocol to minimize the expected estimation error.
Quantum metrology is a promising application of quantum technologies, enabling the precise measurement of weak external fields at a local scale. In typical quantum sensing protocols, a qubit interacts with an external field, and the amplitude of the field is estimated by analyzing the expectation value of a measured observable. Sensitivity can, in principle, be enhanced by increasing the number of qubits within a fixed volume, thereby maintaining spatial resolution. However, at high qubit densities, inter-qubit interactions induce complex many-body dynamics, resulting in multiple oscillations in the expectation value of the observable even for small field amplitudes. This ambiguity reduces the dynamic range of the sensing protocol. We propose a method to overcome the limitation in quantum metrology by adopting a quantum circuit learning framework using a parameterized quantum circuit to approximate a target function by optimizing the circuit parameters. In our method, after the qubits interact with the external field, we apply a sequence of parameterized quantum gates and measure a suitable observable. By optimizing the gate parameters, the expectation value is trained to exhibit a monotonic response within a target range of field amplitudes, thereby eliminating multiple oscillations and enhancing the dynamic range. This method offers a strategy for improving quantum sensing performance in dense qubit systems.
Abstract Entanglement is one of the key ingredients for enhancing the measurement precision of quantum sensors. Generally, there is a trade-off between state preparation and sensing within a limited coherence time. To fully exploit temporal resources, concurrent entanglement generation and sensing with designed sequence of rotations are proposed. Based on twist-and-turn dynamics, modulated rotations along only one axis may be sufficient to drive the state to the optimal one for tiny estimated parameter. However, when the estimated parameter is not tiny, it may impact the evolved state and hence degrade the final measurement precision. Here, we introduce another modulated rotations along different axis and find out the optimal control sequences by means of machine optimization. The optimal measurement precision bounds become independent on the estimated parameter, which improves the dynamic range of the machine designed sensors. Particularly, by optimizing the interaction strength for different particle number and the time-modulated rotations along two different axes via machine optimization, the Heisenberg-limited precision scaling can be attained. Our work points out a way for designing optimized quantum-enhanced metrology protocols, which is promising for developing practical quantum sensors.
Quantum effects in metrology can in principle enhance measurement precision from the so-called standard quantum limit to the Heisenberg limit. Further advancements in quantum metrology largely rely on innovative metrology protocols that can avoid a number of known obstacles, including the challenge of preparing entangled states with sufficient fidelity, the readout noise in measuring highly entangled states, and no-go theorems for quantum metrology under noisy environments. In this Letter, exploiting some peculiar but experimentally feasible dynamical features of a collection of spins with all-to-all time-periodic interactions, we propose a metrology protocol that can circumvent all three mentioned obstacles and yet still make good use of time as a resource for metrology. Specifically, by mapping the dynamics of such a periodically driven spin system to that of a paradigm of quantum chaos but tuned to some high-order quantum resonance, it is shown that a simple SU(2) coherent state can, after evolving to highly entangled states in the ensuing dynamics, be dynamically brought back to the same initial coherent state. The associated quantum Fisher information is found to exhibit quadratic scaling with both the number of spins and the duration of the metrology protocol. The achieved Heisenberg scaling can also largely survive in the presence of Markovian noise. Representing a previously unknown strategy for quantum metrology, the protocol proposed here can be tested on available experimental platforms.
Quantum metrology and sensing seek advantages in estimating an unknown parameter of some quantum state or channel, using entanglement such as spin squeezing produced by one-axis twists or other quantum resources. In particular, qubit phase estimation, or rotation sensing, appears as a ubiquitous problem with applications to electric field sensing, magnetometry, atomic clocks, and gyroscopes. By adopting the Bayesian formalism to the phase estimation problem to account for limited initial knowledge about the value of the phase, we formulate variational metrology and treat the state preparation (or encoding) and measurement (or decoding) procedures as parameterized quantum circuits. It is important to understand how effective various parametrized protocols are as well as how robust they are to the effects of complex noise such as spatially correlated noise. First, we propose a family of parametrized encoding and decoding protocols called arbitrary-axis twist ansatzes, and show that it can lead to a substantial reduction in the number of one-axis twists needed to achieve a target estimation error. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the estimation error associated with these strategies decreases with system size in a faster manner than classical (or no-twist) protocols, even in the less-explored regimes where the prior information is limited. Last, using a polynomial-sized tensor network algorithm, we numerically analyze practical variational metrology beyond the symmetric subspace of a collective spin and find that quantum advantage persists for the arbitrary-axis twist ansatzes with a few one-axis twists and smaller total twisting angles for practically relevant noise levels. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Quantum states and measurements are two central physical objects in the theory of quantum mechanics. The preparation, control and measurement of quantum states lies at the heart of modern quantum information processing protocols ranging from secure communication to quantum computation and precision sensing. And yet, the reliable operation of these advanced protocols ultimately rests on a far more essential prerequisite - our ability to calibrate, certify and benchmark the quantum states we prepare and the quantum measurements we perform. Quantum information theory provides a natural framework for these tasks, meaningfully connecting the resources we expend for characterisation with the accuracy and precision we can expect in return. While decades of advances in quantum information have refined our understanding of quantum characterisation and sharpened our practical ability to calibrate with enhanced precision, important questions about the fundamental limits of quantum characterisation remain unanswered. Although incorporating entanglement at the measurement stage is known to enhance the estimation of unknown quantum states, the extent of this improvement remains poorly understood. This leaves open a fundamental question on the utility of complex entangling measurement strategies, impeding progress towards bridging the significant gap between practically achievable precision and the ultimate theoretical quantum limit. Complementary to quantum state estimation, which is relatively well-established in theory and practice, the characterisation of quantum measurements lacks a rigorous information-theoretic foundation, leading to a dearth of principled benchmarks and provably optimal strategies despite growing experimental interest. This thesis develops and applies information-theoretic tools to answer questions in quantum characterisation, with an eye to enabling practical improvements beyond current techniques in the field. First, we introduce a computable measure of entanglement enhancement for quantum state estimation and study its variation across general multi-parameter estimation problems for higher-dimensional quantum states. We show that the entanglement enhancement is maximised for full qudit state tomography but grows only linearly with system dimension even when allowing an asymptotically large number of entangling operations. Our proposed tight upper bound to entanglement enhancement therefore constitutes a strong limitation on the utility of such entangling measurements. Next, we formulate the dual problem of quantum detector estimation, developing a comprehensive framework for maximally precise calibration centred around a newly introduced quantity - the detector quantum Fisher information. This information-theoretic measure stipulates the ultimate precision attainable for measurement calibration and identifies the optimal input states that achieve this precision. Further, our framework enables the first provably optimal detector estimation experiment and reveals the scope for entanglement-based enhancements, thereby placing measurement characterisation on equal footing with state characterisation. Considered together, these results suggest two contrasting conclusions about quantum characterisation. On the one hand, they show that for quantum state estimation, increasingly powerful entangling measurements offer only diminishing returns at the ultimate precision limit. On the other hand, they highlight practical quantum advantages available for detector estimation by providing a framework that can improve calibration performance and guide future experimental design. More broadly, these results complete and advance the triad of state, process, and detector characterisation, positioning quantum information measures as not merely abstract bounds, but practical guides for deciding when complex quantum resources are genuinely worth deploying and where near-term quantum advantages are most likely to be realised.
Balancing high sensitivity with a broad dynamic range is a fundamental challenge in measurement science, as improving one often compromises the other. While traditional quantum metrology has prioritized enhancing local sensitivity, a large dynamic range is crucial for applications such as atomic clocks, where extended phase interrogation times contribute to wider phase range. In this Letter, we introduce a novel quantum deamplification mechanism that extends dynamic range at a minimal cost of sensitivity. Our approach uses two sequential spin-squeezing operations to generate and detect an entangled probe state, respectively. We demonstrate that the optimal quantum interferometer limit can be approached through two-axis countertwisting dynamics. Further expansion of dynamic range is possible by using sequential quantum deamplification interspersed with phase encoding processes. Additionally, we show that robustness against detection noise can be enhanced by a hybrid sensing scheme that combines quantum deamplification with quantum amplification. Our protocol is within the reach of state-of-the-art atomic-molecular-optical platforms, offering a scalable, noise-resilient pathway for entanglement-enhanced metrology.