There are a number of different strategies to measure the phase shift between two pathways of light more efficiently than suggested by the standard quantum limit. One way is to use highly entangled photons. Another way is to expose photons to a non-linear or interacting Hamiltonian. This paper emphasises that the conditional dynamics of open quantum systems provides an interesting additional tool for quantum-enhanced metrology. As a concrete example, we review a recent scheme which exploits the conditional dynamics of a laser-driven optical cavity with spontaneous photon emission inside a quantum feedback loop. Deducing information from second-order photon correlation measurements requires neither optical non-linearities nor entangled photons and should therefore be of immediate practical interest.
We propose and analyze a new approach based on parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$) symmetric microcavities with balanced gain and loss to enhance the performance of cavity-assisted metrology. We identify the conditions under which $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric microcavities allow to improve sensitivity beyond what is achievable in loss-only systems. We discuss its application to the detection of mechanical motion, and show that the sensitivity is significantly enhanced in the vicinity of the transition point from unbroken- to broken-$\mathcal{PT}$ regimes. We believe that our results open a new direction …
We show why and when entanglement is needed for quantum-enhanced precision measurements, and which type of entanglement is useful. We give a simple, intuitive construction that shows how entanglement transforms parallel estimation strategies into sequential ones of same precision. We employ this argument to generalize conventional quantum metrology, to identify a class of noise whose effects can be easily managed, and to treat the case of indistinguishable probes (such as interferometry with light).
Quantum metrology overcomes standard precision limits and plays a central role in science and technology. Practically it is vulnerable to imperfections such as decoherence. Here, we demonstrate quantum metrology for noisy channels such that entanglement with ancillary qubits enhances the quantum Fisher information for phase estimation but not otherwise. Our photonic experiment covers a range of noise for various types of channels, including for two randomly alternating channels such that assisted entanglement fails for each noisy channel individually. We have simulated noisy channels by implem…
In this article we study the role that quantum resources play in quantum error correction assisted quantum metrology (QECQM) schemes. We show that there exist classes of such problems where entanglement is not necessary to retrieve noise free evolution and Heisenberg scaling in the long time limit. Over short time scales, noise free evolution is also possible even without any form of quantum correlations. In particular, for qubit probes, we show that whenever noise free quantum metrology is possible via QECQM, entanglement free schemes over long time scales and correlation free schemes over sh…
We analyze the role of entanglement among probes and with external ancillas in quantum metrology. In the absence of noise, it is known that unentangled sequential strategies can achieve the same Heisenberg scaling of entangled strategies and that external ancillas are useless. This changes in the presence of noise: here we prove that entangled strategies can have higher precision than unentangled ones and that the addition of passive external ancillas can also increase the precision. We analyze some specific noise models and use the results to conjecture a general hierarchy for quantum metrolo…
We examine the entanglement properties of a system that represents two driven microwave cavities each optomechanically coupled to two separate driven optical cavities which are connected by a single-mode optical fiber. The results suggest that it may be possible to achieve near-maximal entanglement of the microwave cavities, thus allowing a teleportation scheme to enable interactions for hybrid quantum computing of superconducting qubits with optical interconnects.
A system of two coupled cavities is studied in the context of bipartite, continuous variable entanglement. One of the cavities is pumped by an external classical source that is coupled quadratically, to the cavity field. Dynamics of entanglement, quantified by covariance measure [Dodonov {\it et al}, Phys. Lett A {\bf 296}, (2002) 73], in the presence of cavity-cavity coupling and external pumping is investigated. The importance of tailoring the coupling between the cavities is brought out by studying the effects of pump fluctuations on the entanglement.
We present protocols to generate quantum entanglement on nonlocal magnons in hybrid systems composed of yttrium iron garnet (YIG) spheres, microwave cavities and a superconducting (SC) qubit. In the schemes, the YIGs are coupled to respective microwave cavities in resonant way, and the SC qubit is placed at the center of the cavities, which interacts with the cavities simultaneously. By exchanging the virtual photon, the cavities can indirectly interact in the far-detuning regime. Detailed protocols are presented to establish entanglement for two, three and arbitrary $N$ magnons with reasonabl…
Entanglement-assisted quantum communication employs pre-shared entanglement between sender and receiver as a resource. We apply the same framework to quantum metrology, introducing shared entanglement between the preparation and the measurement stage, namely using some entangled ancillary system that does not interact with the system to be sampled. This is known to be useless in the noiseless case, but was recently shown to be useful in the presence of noise. Here we detail how and when it can be of use. For example, surprisingly it is useful when randomly time sharing two channels where ancil…
We have investigated high-precision measurements, beyond the standard quantum limit, utilizing non-classical states. Although entanglement has been considered a resource for achieving the Heisenberg limit in measurements, we show that any advantage expected from using entanglement is dependent on the measurement in question. We investigate several measurement scenarios and illustrate the role of entanglement as a resource for quantum high-precision measurement. In particular, we demonstrate that there is a regime wherein entanglement not only does not help, but prevents the achievement of the …
Quantum metrology allows for a huge boost in the precision of parameters estimation. However, it seems to be extremely sensitive on the noise. Bound entangled states are states with large amount of noise what makes them unusable for almost all quantum informational tasks. Here we provide a counterintuitive example of a family of bound entangled states which can be used in quantum enhanced metrology. We show that these states give advantage as big as maximally entangled states and asymptotically reach the Heisenberg limit. Moreover, entanglement of the applied states is very weak which is refle…
We show that far field diffraction image of spontaneously scattered Stokes photons can be used for detection of spin entanglement and for metrology of fields gradients in cold atomic ensembles. For many-body states with small or maximum uncertainty in spin-excitation number, entanglement is simply witnessed by the presence of a sharp diffraction peak or dip. Gradient vector of external fields is measured by the displacement of a diffraction peak due to inhomogeneous spin precessions, which suggests a new possibility for precision measurement beyond the standard quantum limit without entangleme…
We investigate the entanglement dynamics and coherence of two two-level atoms interacting with two coherent fields of two spatially separated and dissipative cavities. It is in particular shown that entanglement sudden death is obtained within a short interacting time. However, after a long interaction time a long-lived entanglement is shown, that is, the initial entanglement of two atoms could be partially preserved. In addition, the coherence of the two atoms will not be lost during the evolution.
A parameter whose coupling to a quantum probe of $n$ constituents includes all two-body interactions between the constituents can be measured with an uncertainty that scales as $1/n^{3/2}$, even when the constituents are initially unentangled. We devise a protocol that achieves the $1/n^{3/2}$ scaling without generating any entanglement among the constituents, and we suggest that the protocol might be implemented in a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate.
Quantum number-path entanglement is a resource for super-sensitive quantum metrology and in particular provides for sub-shotnoise or even Heisenberg-limited sensitivity. However, such number-path entanglement has thought to have been resource intensive to create in the first place --- typically requiring either very strong nonlinearities, or nondeterministic preparation schemes with feed-forward, which are difficult to implement. Very recently, arising from the study of quantum random walks with multi-photon walkers, as well as the study of the computational complexity of passive linear optica…
The output fields of a pair of coherently coupled nonlinear optical cavities are found to exhibit strong optical entanglement. For sufficiently strong coupling the quantum correlations become asynchronous providing a resource for quantum information protocols such as all-optical quantum memories. A straightforward experimental implementation applicable to whispering gallery mode resonators such as microtoroids is proposed.
A standard model is suggested to explore correlation features of two spatially separated optomechanical cavities. The cavities are coupled through the photon-hopping process. In particular, we investigate the generation of entanglement between mechanical resonators in the strong coupling regime and the two cavities are assumed to be driven by a coherent laser field. In order to quantify entanglement we use the logarithmic negativity. The analytical solutions are presented for the system in a parameter regime very close to the current experimental results. We show that in the presence of the ph…
We propose a scheme for the generation of two-mode entangled states between two spatially separated cavities. It utilizes a two-level atom sequentially coupling to two high-Q cavities with a strong classical driving field. It is shown that by suitably choosing the intensities and detunings of the fields and coherent control of the dynamics, several different entangled states such as entangled coherent states and Bell states can be produced between the modes of the two cavities.
We propose a scheme to generate two-photon, two-atom, or atom-photon entangledstates with a coupled system of two cavities. In our scheme, two cavity photonsare exchanged by the direct inter-cavity coupling, while atoms in the cavitiessimply play the role of generating and probing them. By virtue of the highefficiency of atomic state measurement, this method enables the realization ofefficient heralded entanglement generation robust against photon loss, whichgreatly facilitates applications in quantum information processing.
We present several entanglement criteria in terms of the quantum Fisher information that help to relate various forms of multipartite entanglement to the sensitivity of phase estimation. We show that genuine multipartite entanglement is necessary to reach the maximum sensitivity in some very general metrological tasks using a two-arm linear interferometer. We also show that it is needed to reach the maximum average sensitivity in a certain combination of such metrological tasks.
Nonlinear interactions are recognized as potential resources for quantum metrology, facilitating parameter estimation precisions that scale as the exponential Heisenberg limit of $2^{-N}$. We explore such nonlinearity and propose an associated quantum measurement scenario based on the nonlinear interaction of $N$-probe entanglement generating form. This scenario provides an enhanced precision scaling of $D^{-N}/(N-1)!$ with $D > 2$ a tunable parameter. In addition, it can be readily implemented in a variety of experimental platforms and applied to measurements of a wide range of quantities, in…
We study the evolution of a photonic state in a coupled pair of anharmonic cavities and compare it with the corresponding system of two coupled harmonic cavities. The photons in the anharmonic cavities interact with a two-level atom and are described within the Jaynes-Cummings model. Starting from an eigenstate of the Jaynes-Cummings model with N photons, the evolution of this state in the presence of photon tunneling between the cavities is studied. We evaluate the spectral density, the dynamics of the return as well as the transition amplitudes and the probability for the dynamical creation …
We investigate the stationary bipartite entanglement is a useful hybrid optomechanical system, which is constituted of two coupled-cavity optomechanics through a photon hopping process and both are driven by squeezed light. The transfer of correlations from an entangled light source to optomechanical cavities is explored. It is found that the generation of bipartite entanglement and entanglement transfer depend strongly on photon hopping strength and the matching of the input squeezed modes to the cavity modes. It is revealed that the generated stationary bipartite entanglement due to squeezed…
We propose a scheme to unconditionally entangle the internal states of atoms trapped in separate high finesse optical cavities. The scheme uses the technique of quantum reservoir engineering in a cascaded cavity QED setting, and for ideal (lossless) coupling between the cavities generates an entangled pure state. Highly entangled states are also shown to be possible for realizable cavity QED parameters and with nonideal coupling.
In the framework of cavity QED, we propose a practical scheme to purify dynamically a bipartite entangled state using short chains of atoms coupled to high-finesse optical cavities. In contrast to conventional entanglement purification protocols, we avoid CNOT gates, thus reducing complicated pulse sequences and superfluous qubit operations. Our interaction scheme works in a deterministic way, and together with entanglement distribution and swapping, opens a route towards efficient quantum repeaters for long-distance quantum communication.
We study how to control the dynamics of tripartite entanglement among optical cavities using non-Markovian baths. In particular, we demonstrate how the reservoir engineering through the utilization of non-Markovian baths with different types of Lorentzian and ohmic spectral densities can lead to an entanglement survival for longer times and in some cases considerable regain of seemingly lost entanglement. Both of these behaviors indicate a better sustainability of entanglement (in time) compared to the usual Markovian bath situations which assumes a flat spectrum of the bath around the system …
The dynamics of two coupled modes sharing one excitation is considered. A scheme to inhibit the evolution of any initial state in subspace $\{|1_{a},0_{b} >, |0_{a},1_{b}>\}$ is presented. The scheme is based on the unitary interactions with an auxiliary subsystem, and it can be used to preserve the initial entanglement of the system.
We propose to produce entanglement by measuring the transmission of an optical cavity. Conditioned on the detection of a reflected photon, pairs of atoms in the cavity are prepared in maximally entangled states. The success probability depends on the cavity parameters, but high quality entangled states may be produced with a high probability even for cavities of moderate quality.
In optical interferometry multi-mode entanglement is often assumed to be the driving force behind quantum enhanced measurements. Recent work has shown this assumption to be false: single mode quantum states perform just as well as their multi-mode entangled counterparts. We go beyond this to show that when photon losses occur - an inevitability in any realistic system - multi-mode entanglement is actually detrimental to obtaining quantum enhanced measurements. We specifically apply this idea to a superposition of coherent states, demonstrating that these states show a robustness to loss that a…
We present a protocol that allows the generation of a maximally entangled state between individual atoms held in spatially separate cavities. Assuming perfect detectors and neglecting spontaneous emission from the atoms, the resulting idealized scheme is deterministic. Under more realistic conditions, when the the atom-cavity interaction departs from the strong coupling regime, and considering imperfect detectors, we show that the scheme is robust against experimental inefficiencies and yields probabilistic entanglement of very high fidelity.
In this paper, we study the effect of classical driving field on the spontaneous emission spectrum of a qubit embedded in a dissipative cavity. Furthermore, we monitor the entanglement dynamics of the driven qubit with its radiative decay under the action of the classical field. Afterwards, we carry out an investigation on the possibility of entanglement swapping between two such distinct driven qubits. The swapping will be feasible with the aid of a Bell state measurement performing on the photons leaving the cavities. It is demonstrated that the classical driving field has a beneficial effec…
The quantum fisher information and quantum correlation parameters are employed to study the application of non-classical light to the problem of parameter estimation. It is shown that the optimal measurement sensitivity of a quantum state is determined by its inter-mode correlations (which depends of path-entanglement) and intra-mode correlations (which depends of the photon statistics). In light of these results, we consider the performance of quantum-enhanced optical interferometers. Furthermore, we propose a Heisenberg-limited metrology protocol involving standard elements from passive and …
The manipulation of quantum entanglement has found enormous potential for improving performances of devices such as gyroscopes, clocks, and even computers. Similar improvements have been demonstrated for lithography and microscopy. We present an overview of some aspects of enhancement by quantum entanglement in imaging and metrology.
We identify precision limits for the simultaneous estimation of multiple parameters in multimode interferometers. Quantum strategies to enhance the multiparameter sensitivity are based on entanglement among particles, modes or combining both. The maximum attainable sensitivity of particle-separable states defines the multiparameter shot-noise limit, which can be surpassed without mode entanglement. Further enhancements up to the multiparameter Heisenberg limit are possible by adding mode entanglement. Optimal strategies which saturate the precision bounds are provided.
We examine transfer of particle entanglement and spin squeezing between atomic and photonic subsystems in optical cavities coupled by two-photon exchange. Each cavity contains a single atom, interacting with cavity photons with a two-photon cascade transition. Particle entanglement is characterized by evaluating optimal spin squeezing inequalities, for the cases of initially separable and entangled two-photon states. It is found that particle entanglement is first generated among the photons in separate cavities and then transferred to the atoms. The underlying mechanism is recognized as an in…
Based on two-photon exchange interaction between $n$ coupled optical cavities each of them containing a single three level atom, the $n$-qubit and $n$-photonic state transfer is investigated. In fact, following the approach of Ref.\cite{Alex1}, we consider $n$ coupled cavities instead of two cavities and generalize the discussions about quantum state transfer, photon transition between cavities and entanglement generations between $n$ atoms. More clearly, by employing the consistency of number of photons (the symmetry of Hamiltonian), the hamiltonian of the system is reduced from $3^n$ dimensi…
We propose a method to prepare entangled states and implement quantum computation with atoms in optical cavities. The internal state of the atoms are entangled by a measurement of the phase of light transmitted through the cavity. By repeated measurements an entangled state is created with certainty, and this entanglement can be used to implement gates on qubits which are stored in different internal degrees of freedom of the atoms. This method, based on measurement induced dynamics, has a higher fidelity than schemes making use of controlled unitary dynamics.
We investigate the Hermitian and the non-Hermitian dynamics of the mode entanglement in two identical optical cavities coupled by a chiral mirror. By employing the non-Hermitian quantum evolution, we calculate the logarithmic negativity measure of entanglement for initially Fock, coherent and squeezed states, separately. We verify the non-conservation of mean spin for the initially coherent and squeezed states when the coupling is non-reciprocal and report the associated spin noise for each case. We examine the effects of non-conserved symmetries on the mode correlations and determine the degr…
We use a versatile model to evaluate the multipartite entanglement and the nonclassical light generation in optical parametric oscillators, exploring the differences between doubly and triply resonant cavity configurations. We demonstrate the entanglement of the pump mode with converted fields in both situations, and the fundamental differences of oscillators using parametric down conversion and four wave mixing processes as the intracavity amplification technique. The strong correlations involving the sidebands of the pump and converted fields gives the signatures of a rich dynamic of multipa…
Two-photon interference effects, such as the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect, can be used to characterize to what extent two photons are identical. Identical photons are necessary for both linear optics quantum computing and single-photon quantum cryptography. We study here how storage and delay of photons in coupled cavity arrays, which inevitably will lead to changes in the photons' spectral and temporal profiles, affects their HOM interference. In addition we consider various types of entanglement that occur naturally in such a context.
Quantum metrology is studied in the presence of quantum correlation. The quantum correlation measure based on quantum Fisher information enables us to gain a deeper insight on how quantum correlations are instrumental in setting metrological precision. Our analysis shows that not only the entanglement but also the quantum correlation plays important roles to enhance precision in quantum metrology. Even in the absence of entanglement, quantum correlation can be exploited as the resource to beat standard quantum limit and reach Heisenberg limit in metrology. Clearly unraveling the role of quantu…
Atom chips provide a versatile `quantum laboratory on a microchip' for experiments with ultracold atomic gases. They have been used in experiments on diverse topics such as low-dimensional quantum gases, cavity quantum electrodynamics, atom-surface interactions, and chip-based atomic clocks and interferometers. A severe limitation of atom chips, however, is that techniques to control atomic interactions and to generate entanglement have not been experimentally available so far. Such techniques enable chip-based studies of entangled many-body systems and are a key prerequisite for atom chip app…
The system of an atom couples to two distinct optical cavities with phase decoherence is studied by making use of a dynamical algebraic method. We adopt the concurrence to characterize the entanglement between atom and cavities or between two optical cavities in the presence of the phase decoherence. It is found that the entanglement between atom and cavities can be controlled by adjusting the detuning parameter. Finally, we show that even if the atom is initially prepared in a maximally mixed state, it can also entangle the two mode cavity fields.
We study time dependence of various measures of entanglement (covariance entanglement coefficient, purity entanglement coefficient, normalized distance coefficient, entropic coefficients) between resonantly coupled modes of the electromagnetic field in ideal cavities with oscillating boundaries. Two types of cavities are considered: a three-dimensional cavity possessing eigenfrequencies $ω_3=3ω_1$, whose wall oscillates at the frequency $ω_w=2ω_1$, and a one-dimensional (Fabry--Perot) cavity with an equidistant spectrum $ω_n= nω_1$, when the distance between perfect mirrors oscillates at the f…
The effect of dipole-dipole interaction, the initial relative phase and the coupling strength with the cavity on the dynamics of three two level atoms in the good and the bad cavity regime are investigated. It is found that the presence of strong dipole-dipole interaction not only ensures avoiding entanglement sudden death but also retains entanglement for long time. The choice of the phase in the initial state is crucial to the operational regime of the cavity. Under specific conditions, the entanglement can be frozen in time to its initial values through strong dipole-dipole interaction. Thi…
The dynamical evolution of a quantum system composed of two coupled cavities, each containing a two-level atom and a single-mode thermal field, is investigated under different conditions. The entanglement between the two atoms is controlled by the hopping strength and the detuning between the atomic transition and the cavities. We find that when the atomic transition is far off-resonant with both the eigenmodes of the coupled cavity system, the maximally entangled state for the two atoms can be generated with the initial state in which one atom is in the ground state and the other is in the ex…
A system consisting of two identical single-mode cavities coupled to a common environment is investigated within the framework of algebraic dynamics. Based on the left and right representations of the Heisenberg-Weyl algebra, the algebraic structure of the master equation is explored and exact analytical solutions of this system are obtained. It is shown that for such a system, the environment can produce entanglement in contrast to its commonly believed role of destroying entanglement. In addition, the collective zero-mode eigen solutions of the system are found to be free of decoherence agai…
The Heisenberg limit is the superior precision available by entanglement sensors. However, entanglementis fragile against dephasing, and there is no known quantum metrology protocol that can achieve Heisenberg limited sensitivity with the presence of independent dephasing. Here, we show that the Heisenberg limit is attainable under the effect of independent dephasing under conditions where the probe qubits decohere due to both target fields and local environments. To detect the target fields, we exploit the entanglement properties to decay much faster than the classical states due to collectiv…
In this paper, correlation dynamics for two two-level atoms distributed in two isolated thermal cavities are studied, where the atomic state is initially prepared in a maximum entangled zero-and-two-excitation superposition state. We use two nonclasscal measures including geometric quantum discord via Schatten one norm and concurrence to analyze correlation dynamics for the two atoms when the two cavities have the same or different mean photon numbers. We find though correlation dynamics for these two measures have different features, they have the same characteristics in some particular time …
In our previous paper [Phys. Rev. A 84, 042303 (2011)], we proposed an efficient scheme to purify dynamically a bipartite entangled state using short chains of atoms coupled to high-finesse optical cavities. In contrast to conventional entanglement purification protocols, we avoid controlled-NOT gates and thus reduce complicated pulse sequences and superfluous qubit operations. In this paper, we significantly improve the output fidelity of remotely entangled atoms by introducing one additional entanglement protocol in each of the repeater nodes and by optimizing the laser beams required to con…
Weak-value amplification (WVA) provides a way for amplified detection of a tiny physical signal at the expense of a lower detection probability. Despite this trade-off, due to its robustness against certain types of noise, WVA has advantages over conventional measurements in precision metrology. Moreover, it has been shown that WVA-based metrology can reach the Heisenberg-limit using entangled resources, but preparing macroscopic entangled resources remains challenging. Here we demonstrate a novel WVA scheme based on iterative interactions, achieving the Heisenberg-limited precision scaling wi…
