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Gabriele Bizzarri

Publications and source records attributed to Gabriele Bizzarri.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

Certification of Network Quantum Sensing

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.

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Bayesian stepwise estimation of qubit rotations

This work investigates Bayesian stepwise estimation (Se) for measuring the two parameters of a unitary qubit rotation. While asymptotic analysis predicts a precision advantage for SE over joint estimation (JE) in regimes where the quantum Fisher information matrix is near-singular ("sloppy" models), we demonstrate that this advantage is mitigated within a practical Bayesian framework with limited resources. We experimentally implement a SE protocol using polarisation qubits, achieving uncertainties close to the classical Van Trees bounds. However, comparing the total error to the ultimate quantum Van Trees bound for JE reveals that averaging over prior distributions erases the asymptotic SE advantage. Nevertheless, the stepwise strategy retains a significant practical benefit as it operates effectively with simple, fixed measurements, whereas saturating the JE bound typically requires complex, parameter-dependent operations.

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Controlling Sloppiness in Two-Phase Estimation with a Tunable Weak Measurement

The description of complex systems requires a progressively larger number of parameters. However, in practice, it often happens that a small subset of parameters suffices to describe the dynamics of the system itself: these combinations are usually referred to as \textit{stiff} combinations. In turn, the remaining combinations, called \textit{sloppy}, only play a minor role in the dynamics of the system, hence provide little information on it. While this effect can reduce model complexity, it can also limit the estimation precision when the stiff and sloppy combinations are unknown to the experimenter, and one is forced to estimate the potentially sloppy model parameters. We explored how such a sloppy behavior can be controlled and counteracted via quantum weak measurements in the estimation of two sequential phases. We showed that the introduction of a weak measurement of variable strength in-between the two phases allows to switch from a fully sloppy setup to a fully determined one where both phases can be estimated with quantum-limited precision. Our work provides an important insight of sloppiness detection in quantum systems, with promising applications in quantum metrology and imaging, as well as to quantum security and quantum monitoring.

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Experimental protocol for qubit-environment entanglement detection

Decoherence is a manifestation of the coupling of a system with its environment. The resulting loss of information can hamper the functioning of quantum devices, hence the need of understanding its origin and dynamics. Decoherence can stem from entanglement, but it can also be classical in nature. Indeed, methods have been developed to understand whether qubit-environment entanglement (QEE) is actually present in some important classes of quantum channels - pure dephasing. Their practicality resides in the fact they only require accessing the system qubit. In this article we show an implementation of this technique in a photonic quantum channel simulator via a scheme that has been tailored to the system under study. By controlling the input state of the environment in our simulation, we can check the occurrence of qubit environment entanglement in simple, yet insightful test cases. Our results showcase the usefulness and experimental relevance of the QEE witnessing technique.

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Quasiprobability distributions with weak measurements

We discuss and experimentally demonstrate the role of quantum coherence in a sequence of two measurements collected at different times using weak measurements. For this purpose, we have realized a weak-sequential measurement protocol with photonic qubits, where the first measurement is carried out as a positive operator-valued measure, whereas the second one is a projective operation. We determine the quasiprobability distributions associated to this procedure using both the commensurate and the Margenau-Hill quasiprobabilities approaches. By tuning the weak measurements, we obtain a quasidistribution that may or may not exhibit negative parts, depending on the suitability of a contextual model for describing the experiment. Our results show how quasidistributions may find application in inspecting quantum monitoring, when part of the initial quantum coherence needs to be preserved.

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Quantum steering from phase measurements with limited resources

Quantum steering captures the ability of one party, Alice, to control through quantum correlations the state at a distant location, Bob, with superior ability than allowed by a local hidden state model. Verifying the presence of quantum steering has implications for the certification of quantum channels, and its connection to the metrological power of the quantum state has been recently proved. This link is established by means of the violation of a Cramér-Rao bound holding for non-steerable states: its direct assessment would then require operation in the asymptotic regime of a large number of repetitions. Here, we extend previous work to account explicitly for the use of a limited number of resources, and put this modified approach to test in a quantum optics experiment. The imperfections in the apparatus demand an adaptation of the original test in the multiparameter setting. Our results provide guidelines to apply such a metrological approach to the validation of quantum channels.

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Experimental multiparameter quantum metrology in adaptive regime

Relevant metrological scenarios involve the simultaneous estimation of multiple parameters. The fundamental ingredient to achieve quantum-enhanced performances is based on the use of appropriately tailored quantum probes. However, reaching the ultimate resolution allowed by physical laws requires non trivial estimation strategies both from a theoretical and a practical point of view. A crucial tool for this purpose is the application of adaptive learning techniques. Indeed, adaptive strategies provide a flexible approach to obtain optimal parameter-independent performances, and optimize convergence to the fundamental bounds with limited amount of resources. Here, we combine on the same platform quantum-enhanced multiparameter estimation attaining the corresponding quantum limit and adaptive techniques. We demonstrate the simultaneous estimation of three optical phases in a programmable integrated photonic circuit, in the limited resource regime. The obtained results show the possibility of successfully combining different fundamental methodologies towards transition to quantum sensors applications.

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