Fast, accurate, and error-resilient variational quantum noise spectroscopy

Abstract

Detecting and characterizing decoherence-inducing noise sources is critical for developing robust quantum technologies and deploying quantum sensors operating at molecular scales. However, current noise spectroscopies rely on severe approximations that sacrifice accuracy and precision. We propose a novel approach to overcome these limitations. It self-consistently extracts noise spectra that characterize the interactions between a quantum sensor and its environment from commonly performed dynamical decoupling-based coherence measurements. Our approach adopts minimal assumptions and is resilient to measurement errors. We quantify confidence intervals and sensitivity measures to identify experiments that improve spectral reconstruction. We employ our method to reconstruct the noise spectrum of a nitrogen-vacancy sensor in diamond, resolving previously undetected nuclear species at the diamond surface and revealing that previous measurements had overestimated the strength of low-frequency noise by an order of magnitude. Our method uncovers previously hidden structure with unprecedented accuracy, setting the stage for precision noise spectroscopy-based quantum metrology.