arXiv subjects

Rafal Demkowicz-Dobrzanski

Publications and source records attributed to Rafal Demkowicz-Dobrzanski.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Universal bounds for quantum metrology in the presence of correlated noise

We derive fundamental bounds for general quantum metrological models involving both temporal or spatial correlations (mathematically described by quantum combs), which may be effectively computed in the limit of a large number of probes or sensing channels involved. Although the bounds are not guaranteed to be tight in general, their tightness may be systematically increased by increasing numerical complexity of the procedure. Interestingly, this approach yields bounds tighter than the state of the art also for uncorrelated channels. We apply the bound to study the limits for the most general adaptive phase estimation models in the presence of temporally correlated dephasing. We consider dephasing both parallel (no Heisenberg scaling) and perpendicular (Heisenberg scaling possible) to the signal. In the former case our new bounds show that negative correlations are beneficial, for the latter we show evidence that the bounds are tight. We also apply the bounds to collisional thermometry, i.e. estimation of a parameter of the environment, showing evidence that entangled probes may provide only a limited advantage.

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arXiv2025

Simultaneous optical phase and loss estimation revisited: measurement and probe incompatibility

Quantum multiparameter metrology is hindered by incompatibility issues, such as finding a single probe state (probe incompatibility) and a single measurement (measurement incompatibility) optimal for all parameters. The simultaneous estimation of phase shift and loss in a single optical mode is a paradigmatic multiparameter metrological problem in which such tradeoffs are present. We consider two settings: single-mode or two-mode probes (with a reference lossless mode), and for each setting we consider either Gaussian states or arbitrary quantum states of light restricted only by a maximal number of photons allowed. We find numerically that, as the number of photons increases, there are quantum states of light for which probe incompatibility disappears both in the single- and two-mode scenarios. On the other hand, for Gaussian states, probe incompatibility is present in the single-mode case and may be removed only in the two-mode setting thanks to the entanglement with the reference mode. Finally, we provide strong arguments that the fundamental incompatibility aspect of the model is measurement incompatibility, which persists for all the scenarios considered, and unlike probe-incompatibility cannot be overcome even in the large photon number limit.

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arXiv2025

Quantum metrology using quantum combs and tensor network formalism

We develop an efficient algorithm for determining optimal adaptive quantum estimation protocols with arbitrary quantum control operations between subsequent uses of a probed channel. We introduce a tensor network representation of an estimation strategy, which drastically reduces the time and memory consumption of the algorithm, and allows us to analyze metrological protocols involving up to $N=50$ qubit channel uses, whereas the state-of-the-art approaches are limited to $N<5$. The method is applied to study the performance of the optimal adaptive metrological protocols in presence of various noise types, including correlated noise.

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arXiv2025

Universal time scalings of sensitivity in Markovian quantum metrology

Assuming Markovian time evolution of a quantum sensing system, we study the general characterization of the optimal sensitivity scalings with time, under most general quantum control protocols. We allow the estimated parameter to influence both the Hamiltonian as well as the dissipative part of the quantum master equation and focus on the asymptotic-time along with the short-time sensitivity scalings. We find that via simple algebraic conditions (in terms of the Hamiltonian, the jump operators as well as their parameter derivatives), one can characterize the four classes of metrological models that represent: quadratic-linear, quadratic-quadratic, linear-linear and linear-quadratic time scalings. We also investigate the relevant time scales on which the transition between the two regimes appears. Additionally, we provide universal numerical methods to obtain quantitative bounds on sensitivity that are the tightest that exist in the literature. Simplicity and universality of our results make it suitable for diverse applications in quantum metrology.

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arXiv2023

Quantum asymmetry and noisy multi-mode interferometry

Quantum asymmetry is a physical resource which coincides with the amount of coherence between the eigenspaces of a generator responsible for phase encoding in interferometric experiments. We highlight an apparently counter-intuitive behavior that the asymmetry may \emph{increase} as a result of a \emph{decrease} of coherence inside a degenerate subspace. We intuitively explain and illustrate the phenomena by performing a three-mode single-photon interferometric experiment, where one arm carries the signal and two noisy reference arms have fluctuating phases. We show that the source of the observed sensitivity improvement is the reduction of correlations between these fluctuations and comment on the impact of the effect when moving from the single-photon quantum level to the classical regime. Finally, we also establish the analogy of the effect in the case of entanglement resource theory.

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arXiv2023

Measurement noise susceptibility in quantum estimation

Fisher Information is a key notion in the whole field of quantum metrology. It allows for a direct quantification of maximal achievable precision of estimation of parameters encoded in quantum states using the most general quantum measurement. It fails, however, to quantify the robustness of quantum estimation schemes against measurement imperfections, which are always present in any practical implementations. Here, we introduce a new concept of Fisher Information Measurement Noise Susceptibility that quantifies the potential loss of Fisher Information due to small measurement disturbance. We derive an explicit formula for the quantity, and demonstrate its usefulness in analysis of paradigmatic quantum estimation schemes, including interferometry and super-resolution optical imaging.

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arXiv2023

Using adaptiveness and causal superpositions against noise in quantum metrology

We derive new bounds on achievable precision in the most general adaptive quantum metrological scenarios. The bounds are proven to be asymptotically saturable and equivalent to the known parallel scheme bounds in the limit of large number of channel uses. This completely solves a long standing conjecture in the field of quantum metrology on asymptotic equivalence between parallel and adaptive strategies. The new bounds also allow to easily assess the potential benefits of invoking the non-standard causal superposition strategies, for which we prove, similarly to the adaptive case, the lack of asymptotic advantage over the parallel ones.

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arXiv2022

Multiple-phase quantum interferometry -- real and apparent gains of measuring all the phases simultaneously

We characterize operationally meaningful quantum gains in a paradigmatic model of lossless multiple-phase interferometry and stress insufficiency of the analysis based solely on the concept of quantum Fisher information. We show that the advantage of the optimal simultaneous estimation scheme amounts to a constant factor improvement when compared with schemes where each phase is estimated separately -- contrary to a widely cited results claiming a better precision scaling in terms of the number of phases involved.

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arXiv2021

Probe incompatibility in multiparameter noisy quantum metrology

We derive fundamental bounds on the maximal achievable precision in multiparameter noisy quantum metrology, valid under the most general entanglement-assisted adaptive strategy, which are tighter than the bounds obtained by a direct use of single-parameter results. This allows us to study the issue of the optimal probe incompatibility in the simultaneous estimation of multiple parameters in generic noisy channels, while so far the issue has been studied mostly in effectively noiseless scenarios (where the Heisenberg scaling is possible). We apply our results to the estimation of both unitary and noise parameters, and indicate models where the fundamental probe incompatibility is present. In particular, we show that in lossy multiple arm interferometry the probe incompatibility is as strong as in the noiseless scenario. Finally, going beyond the multiple-parameter estimation paradigm, we introduce the concept of \emph{random quantum sensing} and show how the tools developed may be applied to multiple channel discrimination problems. As an illustration, we provide a simple proof of the loss of the quadratic advantage of time-continuous Grover algorithm in presence of dephasing or erasure noise.

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arXiv2021

Kramers-Kronig relations and precision limits in quantum phase estimation

The ultimate precision in any measurement is dictated by the physical process implementing the observation. The methods of quantum metrology have now succeeded in establishing bounds on the achievable precision for phase measurements over noisy channels. In particular, they demonstrate how the Heisenberg scaling of the precision can not be attained in these conditions. Here we discuss how the ultimate bound in presence of loss has a physical motivation in the Kramers-Kronig relations and we show how they link the precision on the phase estimation to that on the loss parameter.

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arXiv2021

TNQMetro: Tensor-network based package for efficient quantum metrology computations

TNQMetro is a numerical package written in Python for calculations of fundamental quantum bounds on measurement precision. Thanks to the usage of the tensor-network formalism it can beat the curse of dimensionality and provides an efficient framework to calculate bounds for finite size system as well as determine the asymptotic scaling of precision in systems where quantum enhancement amounts to a constant factor improvement over the Standard Quantum Limit. It is written in a user-friendly way so that the basic functions do not require any knowledge of tensor networks.

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arXiv2021

Super-resolution Optical Fluctuation Imaging -- fundamental estimation theory perspective

We provide a quantitative analysis of super-resolution imaging techniques which exploit temporal fluctuations of luminosity of the sources in order to beat the Rayleigh limit. We define an operationally justified resolution gain figure of merit, that allows us to connect the estimation theory concepts with the ones typically used in the imaging community, and derive fundamental resolution limits that scale at most as the fourth-root of the mean luminosity of the sources. We fine-tune and benchmark the performance of state-of-the-art methods, focusing on the cumulant-based image processing techniques (known under the common acronym SOFI), taking into account the impact of limited photon number and sampling time.

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arXiv2020

Multi-parameter estimation beyond Quantum Fisher Information

This review aims at gathering the most relevant quantum multi-parameter estimation methods that go beyond the direct use of the Quantum Fisher Information concept. We discuss in detail the Holevo Cramér-Rao bound, the Quantum Local Asymptotic Normality approach as well as Bayesian methods. Even though the fundamental concepts in the field have been laid out more than forty years ago, a number of important results have appeared much more recently. Moreover, the field drew increased attention recently thanks to advances in practical quantum metrology proposals and implementations that often involve estimation of multiple parameters simultaneously. Since these topics are spread in the literature and often served in a very formal mathematical language, one of the main goals of this review is to provide a largely self-contained work that allows the reader to follow most of the derivations and get an intuitive understanding of the interrelations between different concepts using a set of simple yet representative examples involving qubit and Gaussian shift models.

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arXiv2020

Optimal probes and error-correction schemes in multi-parameter quantum metrology

We derive a necessary and sufficient condition for the possibility of achieving the Heisenberg scaling in general adaptive multi-parameter estimation schemes in presence of Markovian noise. In situations where the Heisenberg scaling is achievable, we provide a semidefinite program to identify the optimal quantum error correcting (QEC) protocol that yields the best estimation precision. We overcome the technical challenges associated with potential incompatibility of the measurement optimally extracting information on different parameters by utilizing the Holevo Cramér-Rao (HCR) bound for pure states. We provide examples of significant advantages offered by our joint-QEC protocols, that sense all the parameters utilizing a single error-corrected subspace, over separate-QEC protocols where each parameter is effectively sensed in a separate subspace.

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arXiv2020

Using Quantum Metrological Bounds in Quantum Error Correction: A Simple Proof of the Approximate Eastin-Knill Theorem

We present a simple proof of the approximate Eastin-Knill theorem, which connects the quality of a quantum error-correcting code (QECC) with its ability to achieve a universal set of transversal logical gates. Our derivation employs powerful bounds on the quantum Fisher information in generic quantum metrological protocols to characterize the QECC performance measured in terms of the worst-case entanglement fidelity. The theorem is applicable to a large class of decoherence models, including independent erasure and depolarizing noise. Our approach is unorthodox, as instead of following the established path of utilizing QECCs to mitigate noise in quantum metrological protocols, we apply methods of quantum metrology to explore the limitations of QECCs.

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arXiv2020

$π$-Corrected Heisenberg Limit

We consider the precision $Δφ$ with which the parameter $φ$, appearing in the unitary map $U_φ= e^{ i φΛ}$ acting on some type of probe system, can be estimated when there is a finite amount of prior information about $φ$. We show that, if $U_φ$ acts $n$ times in total, then, asymptotically in $n$, there is a tight lower bound $Δφ\geq \fracπ{n (λ_+ - λ_-)}$, where $λ_+$, $λ_-$ are the extreme eigenvalues of the generator $Λ$. This is greater by a factor of $π$ than the conventional Heisenberg limit, derived from the properties of the quantum Fisher information. That is, the conventional bound is never saturable. Our result makes no assumptions on the measurement protocol, and is relevant not only in the noiseless case but also if noise can be eliminated using quantum error correction techniques.

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arXiv2020

Tensor-Network Approach for Quantum Metrology in Many-Body Quantum Systems

Identification of the optimal quantum metrological protocols in realistic many particle quantum models is in general a challenge that cannot be efficiently addressed by the state-of-the-art numerical and analytical methods. Here we provide a comprehensive framework exploiting matrix product operators (MPO) type tensor networks for quantum metrological problems. Thanks to the fact that the MPO formalism allows for an efficient description of short-range spatial and temporal noise correlations, the maximal achievable estimation precision in such models, as well as the optimal probe states in previously inaccessible regimes can be identified. Moreover, the application of infinite MPO (iMPO) techniques allows for a direct and efficient determination of the asymptotic precision of optimal protocols in the limit of infinite particle numbers. We illustrate the potential of our framework in terms of an atomic clock stabilization (temporal noise correlation) example as well as for magnetic field sensing in the presence of locally correlated magnetic field fluctuations (spatial noise correlations). As a byproduct, the developed methods for calculating the quantum Fisher information via MPOs may be used to calculate the fidelity susceptibility - a parameter widely used in many-body physics to study phase transitions.

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arXiv2019

Compatibility in Multiparameter Quantum Metrology

Simultaneous estimation of multiple parameters in quantum metrological models is complicated by factors relating to the (i) existence of a single probe state allowing for optimal sensitivity for all parameters of interest, (ii) existence of a single measurement optimally extracting information from the probe state on all the parameters, and (iii) statistical independence of the estimated parameters. We consider the situation when these concerns present no obstacle and for every estimated parameter the variance obtained in the multiparameter scheme is equal to that of an optimal scheme for that parameter alone, assuming all other parameters are perfectly known. We call such models compatible. In establishing a rigorous theoretical framework for investigating compatibility, we clarify some ambiguities and inconsistencies present in the literature and discuss several examples to highlight interesting features of unitary and non-unitary parameter estimation, as well as deriving new bounds for physical problems of interest, such as the simultaneous estimation of phase and local dephasing.

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