arXiv subjects

John K. Stockton

Publications and source records attributed to John K. Stockton.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2008

Quantum Limits and Robustness of Nonlinear Intracavity Absorption Spectroscopy

We investigate the limits of intracavity absorption spectroscopy with nonlinear media. Using a common theoretical framework, we compare the detection of a trace gas within an undriven cavity with gain near and above threshold, a driven cavity with gain kept just below threshold, and a cavity driven close to the saturation point of a saturable absorber. These phase-transition-based metrology methods are typically quantum-limited by spontaneous emission, and we compare them to the empty cavity shotnoise-limited case. Although the fundamental limits achievable with nonlinear media do not surpass the empty cavity limits, we show that nonlinear methods are more robust against certain technical noise models. This recognition may have applications in spectrometer design for devices operating in non-ideal field environments.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2008

Bayesian estimation for selective trace gas detection

We present a Bayesian estimation analysis for a particular trace gas detection technique with species separation provided by differential diffusion. The proposed method collects a sample containing multiple gas species into a common volume, and then allows it to diffuse across a linear array of optical absorption detectors, using, for example, high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavities. The estimation procedure assumes that all gas parameters (e.g. diffusion constants, optical cross sections) are known except for the number population of each species, which are determined from the time-of-flight absorption profiles in each detector.

physics.data-an↗

arXiv2008

Suppression of Spin Projection Noise in Broadband Atomic Magnetometry

Our 2005 Physical Review Letter entitled "Suppression of Spin-Projection Noise in Broadband Atomic Magnetometry" (volume 94, 203002) relied heavily in its claims of experimental quantum-limited performance on the results of a prior publication from our group [1]. In subsequent work we have determined that the results of [1] were incorrect and must therefore retract this Physical Review Letter as well. The authors would like to emphasize that the broadband magnetometry approach taken in our work remains valid, as described in the theoretical paper [2], but we have lost confidence in the calibration procedures employed at the time to establish sensitivity relative to the spin-projection noise level. [1] JM Geremia, John K. Stockton and Hideo Mabuchi, "Real-Time Quantum Feedback Control of Atomic Spin-Squeezing," Science 304, 270, (2004). [2] John K. Stockton, JM Geremia, Andrew C. Doherty and Hideo Mabuchi, "Robust quantum parameter estimation: Coherent magnetometry with feedback," Phys. Rev. A 69, 032109, (2004).

quant-ph↗

arXiv2007

Scattering of polarized laser light by an atomic gas in free space: a QSDE approach

We propose a model, based on a quantum stochastic differential equation (QSDE), to describe the scattering of polarized laser light by an atomic gas. The gauge terms in the QSDE account for the direct scattering of the laser light into different field channels. Once the model has been set, we can rigorously derive quantum filtering equations for balanced polarimetry and homodyne detection experiments, study the statistics of output processes and investigate a strong driving, weak coupling limit.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2005

Tensor polarizability and dispersive quantum measurement of multilevel atoms

Optimally extracting information from measurements performed on a physical system requires an accurate model of the measurement interaction. Continuously probing the collective spin of an Alkali atom cloud via its interaction with an off-resonant optical probe is an important example of such a measurement where realistic modeling at the quantum level is possible using standard techniques from atomic physics. Typically, however, tutorial descriptions of this technique have neglected the multilevel structure of realistic atoms for the sake of simplification. In this paper we account for the full multilevel structure of Alkali atoms and derive the irreducible form of the polarizability Hamiltonian describing a typical dispersive quantum measurement. For a specific set of parameters, we then show that semiclassical predictions of the theory are consistent with our experimental observations of polarization scattering by a polarized cloud of laser-cooled Cesium atoms. We also derive the signal-to-noise ratio under a single measurement trial and use this to predict the rate of spin-squeezing with multilevel Alkali atoms for arbitrary detuning of the probe beam.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2004

Feedback control of quantum state reduction

Feedback control of quantum mechanical systems must take into account the probabilistic nature of quantum measurement. We formulate quantum feedback control as a problem of stochastic nonlinear control by considering separately a quantum filtering problem and a state feedback control problem for the filter. We explore the use of stochastic Lyapunov techniques for the design of feedback controllers for quantum spin systems and demonstrate the possibility of stabilizing one outcome of a quantum measurement with unit probability.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2004

Deterministic Dicke state preparation with continuous measurement and control

We characterize the long-time projective behavior of the stochastic master equation describing a continuous, collective spin measurement of an atomic ensemble both analytically and numerically. By adding state based feedback, we show that it is possible to prepare highly entangled Dicke states deterministically.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2003

Quantum Kalman Filtering and the Heisenberg Limit in Atomic Magnetometry

The shot-noise detection limit in current high-precision atomic magnetometry is a manifestation of quantum fluctuations that scale as the square root of N in an ensemble of N particles. However, there is a general expectation that the reduced projection noise provided by conditional spin-squeezing could be exploited to surpass the conventional shot-noise limit. We show that continuous measurement coupled with quantum Kalman filtering provides an optimal procedure for magnetic detection limits that scale with 1/N, the Heisenberg squeezing limit. Our analysis demonstrates the importance of optimal estimation procedures for high bandwidth precision magnetometry.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2003

Robust quantum parameter estimation: coherent magnetometry with feedback

We describe the formalism for optimally estimating and controlling both the state of a spin ensemble and a scalar magnetic field with information obtained from a continuous quantum limited measurement of the spin precession due to the field. The full quantum parameter estimation model is reduced to a simplified equivalent representation to which classical estimation and control theory is applied. We consider both the tracking of static and fluctuating fields in the transient and steady state regimes. By using feedback control, the field estimation can be made robust to uncertainty about the total spin number.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2003

Closed-loop Quantum Parameter Estimation: Spins in a Magnetic Field

We present an experimental demonstration of closed-loop quantum parameter estimation in which real-time feedback is used to achieve robustness to modeling uncertainty. By performing broadband estimation of a magnetic field acting on hyperfine spins in a cold atom ensemble, we show that accuracy is not compromised by fluctuations in total atom number even though the measured signal in our canonical configuration depends only on the product of the field and atom number. This methodology could be essential for efforts to utilize conditional squeezing in spin-resonance measurements.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2003

Characterizing the entanglement of symmetric many-particle spin-1/2 systems

Analyzing the properties of entanglement in many-particle spin-1/2 systems is generally difficult because the system's Hilbert space grows exponentially with the number of constituent particles, $N$. Fortunately, it is still possible to investigate many-particle entanglement when the state of the system possesses sufficient symmetry. In this paper, we present a practical method for efficiently computing various bipartite entanglement measures for states in the symmetric subspace and perform these calculations for $N\sim 10^3$. By considering all possible bipartite splits, we construct a picture of the multiscale entanglement in large symmetric systems. In particular, we characterize dynamically generated spin-squeezed states by comparing them to known reference states (e.g., GHZ and Dicke states) and new families of states with near-maximal bipartite entropy. We quantify the trade-off between the degree of entanglement and its robustness to particle loss, emphasizing that substantial entanglement need not be fragile.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2002

Adaptive homodyne measurement of optical phase

We present an experimental demonstration of the power of real-time feedback in quantum metrology, confirming a theoretical prediction by Wiseman regarding the superior performance of an adaptive homodyne technique for single-shot measurement of optical phase. For phase measurements performed on weak coherent states with no prior knowledge of the signal phase, we show that the variance of adaptive homodyne estimation approaches closer to the fundamental quantum uncertainty limit than any previously demonstrated technique. Our results underscore the importance of real-time feedback for reaching quantum performance limits in coherent telecommunication, precision measurement and information processing.

quant-ph↗