Following the evolution of an open quantum system requires full knowledge of its dynamics. In this paper we consider open quantum systems for which the Hamiltonian is ``uncertain''. In particular, we treat in detail a simple system similar to that considered by Mabuchi [Quant. Semiclass. Opt. 8, 1103 (1996)]: a radiatively damped atom driven by an unknown Rabi frequency $Ω$ (as would occur for an atom at an unknown point in a standing light wave). By measuring the environment of the system, knowledge about the system state, and about the uncertain dynamical parameter, can be acquired. We find that these two sorts of knowledge acquisition (quantified by the posterior distribution for $Ω$, and the conditional purity of the system, respectively) are quite distinct processes, which are not strongly correlated. Also, the quality and quantity of knowledge gain depend strongly on the type of monitoring scheme. We compare five different detection schemes (direct, adaptive, homodyne of the $x$ quadrature, homodyne of the $y$ quadrature, and heterodyne) using four different measures of the knowledge gain (Shannon information about $Ω$, variance in $Ω$, long-time system purity, and short-time system purity).
We demonstrate a fast, robust and non-destructive protocol for quantum state estimation based on continuous weak measurement in the presence of a controlled dynamical evolution. Our experiment uses optically probed atomic spins as a testbed, and successfully reconstructs a range of trial states with fidelities of ~90%. The procedure holds promise as a practical diagnostic tool for the study of complex quantum dynamics, the testing of quantum hardware, and as a starting point for new types of quantum feedback control.
The unavoidable finite time intervals between the sequential operations needed for performing practical quantum computing can degrade the performance of quantum computers. During these delays, unwanted relative dynamical phases are produced due to the free evolution of the superposition wave-function of the qubits. In general, these coherent "errors" modify the desired quantum interferences and thus spoil the correct results, compared to the ideal standard quantum computing that does not consider the effects of delays between successive unitary operations. Here, we show that, in the framework …
Estimating the parameters governing the dynamics of a system is a prerequisite for its optimal control. We present a simple but powerful method that we call STEADY, for STochastic Estimation algorithm for DYnamical variables, to estimate the Hamiltonian (or Lindbladian) governing a quantum system of a few qubits. STEADY makes efficient use of all measurements and its performance scales as the information-theoretic limits for such an estimator. Importantly, it is inherently robust to state preparation and measurement errors. It is not limited to evaluating only a fixed set of possible gates, ra…
We study the dephasing-assisted precision of parameter estimation (PPE) enhancement in atom interferometer under dynamical decoupling (DD) pulses. Through calculating spin squeezing (SS) and quantum Fisher information (QFI), we find that dephasing noise can improve PPE by inducing SS, and the DD pulses can maximize the improvement. It is indicated that in the presence of DD pulses, the dephasing-induced SS can reach the limit of \textquotedblleft one-axis twisting\textquotedblright\ model, $ξ^2\simeq N^{-2/3}$ with $ξ^2$ being the SS parameter and N the number of atoms. In particular, we find …
We show how phase and amplitude estimation algorithms can be parallelized. This can reduce the gate depth of the quantum circuits to that of a single Grover operator with a small overhead. Further, we show that for quantum amplitude estimation, the parallelization can lead to vast improvements in resilience against quantum errors. The resilience is not caused by the lower gate depth, but by the structure of the algorithm. Even in cases with errors that make it impossible to read out the exact or approximate solutions from conventional amplitude estimation, our parallel approach provided the co…
We investigate the effect of imperfections in realistic detectors upon the problem of quantum state and parameter estimation by continuous monitoring of an open quantum system. Specifically, we have reexamined the system of a two-level atom with an unknown Rabi frequency introduced by Gambetta and Wiseman [Phys. Rev. A 64, 042105 (2001)]. We consider only direct photodetection and use the realistic quantum trajectory theory reported by Warszawski, Wiseman, and Mabuchi [Phys. Rev. A 65, 023802 (2002)]. The most significant effect comes from a finite bandwidth, corresponding to an uncertainty in…
The efficiency of parameter estimation of quantum channels is studied in this paper. We introduce the concept of programmable parameters to the theory of estimation. It is found that programmable parameters obey the standard quantum limit strictly; hence no speedup is possible in its estimation. We also construct a class of non-unitary quantum channels whose parameter can be estimated in a way that the standard quantum limit is broken. The study of estimation of general quantum channels also enables an investigation of the effect of noises on quantum estimation.
We propose that a pulsed quantum optomechanical system can be applied for the problem of quantum parameter estimation, which targets to yield higher precision of parameter estimation utilizing quantum resource than that using classical methods. Mainly concentrating on the quantum Fisher information with respect to the mechanical frequency, we find that the corresponding precision of parameter estimation on the mechanical frequency can be enhanced by applying applicable optical resonant pulsed driving on the cavity of the optome- chanical system. Further investigation shows that the mechanical …
We discuss the estimation of channel parameters for a noisy quantum channel - the so-called Pauli channel - using finite resources. It turns out that prior entanglement considerably enhances the fidelity of the estimation when we compare it to an estimation scheme based on separable quantum states.
Decoherence induced by the laser frequency noise is one of the most important obstacles in the quantum information processing. In order to suppress this decoherence, the noise power spectral density needs to be accurately characterized. In particular, the noise spectrum measurement based on the coherence characteristics of qubits would be a meaningful and still challenging method. Here, we theoretically analyze and experimentally obtain the spectrum of laser frequency noise based on the continuous dynamical decoupling technique. We first estimate the mixture-noise (including laser and magnetic…
We establish a connection between optimal quantum cloning and optimal state estimation for d-dimensional quantum systems. In this way we derive an upper limit on the fidelity of state estimation for d-dimensional pure quantum states and, furthermore, for generalized inputs supported on the symmetric subspace.
An algorithm based on quantum phase estimation, which discriminates quantum states nondestructively within a set of arbitrary orthogonal states, is described and experimentally verified by a NMR quantum information processor. The procedure is scalable and can be applied to any set of orthogonal states. Scalability is demonstrated through Matlab simulation.
Two important classes of the quantum statistical model, the locally quasi-classical model and the quasi-classical model, are introduced from the estimation theoretical viewpoint, and they are characterized geometrically by the vanishing conditions of the relative phase factor (RPF), implying the close tie between Uhlmann parallel transport and the quantum estimation theory.
New algorithm for quantum state estimation based on the maximum likelihood estimation is proposed. Existing techniques for state reconstruction based on the inversion of measured data are shown to be overestimated since they do not guarantee the positive definiteness of the reconstructed density matrix.
For the precise estimation of the unknown quantum state, the independent samples should be prepared. Can we reduce the error of the estimation by the measurement using the quantum correlation between every sample? In this paper, this question is treated in the parameter estimation for the unknown state.
We formulate the error and disturbance in quantum measurement by invoking quantum estimation theory. The disturbance formulated here characterizes the non-unitary state change caused by the measurement. We prove that the product of the error and disturbance is bounded from below by the commutator of the observables. We also find the attainable bound of the product.
In this thesis, attention is paid to small experimental testbed applications with respect to the quantum phase estimation algorithm, the core approach for finding energy eigenvalues. An iterative scheme for quantum phase estimation (IPEA) is derived from the Kitaev phase estimation, a study of robustness of the IPEA utilized as a few-qubit testbed application is performed, and an improved protocol for phase reference alignment is presented. Additionally, a short overview of quantum cryptography is given, with a particular focus on quantum steganography and authentication.
We give a rigorous treatment on the foundation of the first order asymptotic theory of quantum estimation, with tractable and reasonable regularity conditions. Different from past works, we do not use Fisher information nor MLE, and an optimal estimator is constructed based on locally unbiased estimators. Also, we treat state estimation by local operations and classical communications (LOCC), and estimation of quantum operations.
The impossibility of perfect cloning and state estimation are two fundamental results in Quantum Mechanics. It has been conjectured that quantum cloning becomes equivalent to state estimation in the asymptotic regime where the number of clones tends to infinity. We prove this conjecture using two known results of Quantum Information Theory: the monogamy of quantum correlations and the properties of entanglement breaking channels.
We discuss an interferometric approach to the estimation of quantum mechanical damping. We study specific classes of entangled and separable probe states consisting of superpositions of coherent states. Based on the assumption of limited quantum resources we show that entanglement improves the estimation of an unknown damping constant.
The phase estimation algorithm, which is at the heart of a variety of quantum algorithms, including Shor's factoring algorithm, allows a quantum computer to accurately determine an eigenvalue of an unitary operator. Quantum nondemolition measurements are a quantum mechanical procedure, used to overcome the standard quantum limit when measuring an observable. We show that the phase estimation algorithm, in both the discrete and continuous variable setting, can be viewed as a quantum nondemolition measurement.
This paper focuses on the quantum amplitude estimation algorithm, which is a core subroutine in quantum computation for various applications. The conventional approach for amplitude estimation is to use the phase estimation algorithm, which consists of many controlled amplification operations followed by a quantum Fourier transform. However, the whole procedure is hard to implement with current and near-term quantum computers. In this paper, we propose a quantum amplitude estimation algorithm without the use of expensive controlled operations; the key idea is to utilize the maximum likelihood …
A universal approach to decoherence control combined with quantum estimation theory reveals a critical behavior, akin to a phase transition, of the information obtainable by a qubit probe concerning the memory time of environmental fluctuations. This criticality emerges only when the probe is subject to dynamical control. It gives rise to a sharp transition between two dynamical phases characterized by either a short or long memory time compared to the probing time. This phase-transition of the environmental information is a fundamental feature that facilitates the attainment of the highest es…
Various schemes have been proposed to overcome the drawback of the decoherence on quantum-enhanced parameter estimation. Here we suggest an alternative method, quantum feedback, to enhance the parameter precision of optimal quantum estimation of a dissipative qubit by investigating its dynamics of quantum Fisher information. We find that compared with the case without feedback, the quantum Fisher information of the dissipative qubit in the case of feedback has a large maximum value in time evolution and a smaller decay rate in the long time.
Quantum phase estimation is a fundamental subroutine in many quantum algorithms, including Shor's factorization algorithm and quantum simulation. However, so far results have cast doubt on its practicability for near-term, non-fault tolerant, quantum devices. Here we report experimental results demonstrating that this intuition need not be true. We implement a recently proposed adaptive Bayesian approach to quantum phase estimation and use it to simulate molecular energies on a Silicon quantum photonic device. The approach is verified to be well suited for pre-threshold quantum processors by i…
We present filtering equations for single shot parameter estimation using continuous quantum measurement. By embedding parameter estimation in the standard quantum filtering formalism, we derive the optimal Bayesian filter for cases when the parameter takes on a finite range of values. Leveraging recent convergence results [van Handel, arXiv:0709.2216 (2008)], we give a condition which determines the asymptotic convergence of the estimator. For cases when the parameter is continuous valued, we develop quantum particle filters as a practical computational method for quantum parameter estimation…
We derived an asymptotic bound the accuracy of the estimation when we use the quantum correlation in the measuring apparatus. It is also proved that this bound can be achieved in any model in the quantum two-level system. Moreover, we show that this bound of such a model cannot be attained by any quantum measurement with no quantum correlation in the measuring apparatus. That is, in such a model, the quantum correlation can improve the accuracy of the estimation in an asymptotic setting.
We address several estimation problems in quantum optics by means of the maximum-likelihood principle. We consider Gaussian state estimation and the determination of the coupling parameters of quadratic Hamiltonians. Moreover, we analyze different schemes of phase-shift estimation. Finally, the absolute estimation of the quantum efficiency of both linear and avalanche photodetectors is studied. In all the considered applications, the Gaussian bound on statistical errors is attained with a few thousand data.
We extend the concept of probabilistic unambiguous discrimination of quantum states to quantum state estimation. We consider a scenario where the measurement device can output either an estimate of the unknown input state or an inconclusive result. We present a general method how to evaluate the maximum fidelity achievable by the probabilistic estimation strategy. We illustrate our method on two explicit examples: estimation of a qudit from a pair of conjugate qudits and phase covariant estimation of a qubit from N copies. We show that by allowing for inconclusive results it is possible to rea…
By invoking quantum estimation theory we formulate bounds of errors in quantum measurement for arbitrary quantum states and observables in a finite-dimensional Hilbert space. We prove that the measurement errors of two observables satisfy Heisenberg's uncertainty relation, find the attainable bound, and provide a strategy to achieve it.
Quantum phase estimation (QPE) is the key subroutine of several quantum computing algorithms as well as a central ingredient in quantum computational chemistry and quantum simulation. While QPE strategies have focused on the estimation of a single phase, applications to the simultaneous estimation of several phases may bring substantial advantages; for instance, in the presence of spatial or temporal constraints. In this work, we study a Bayesian algorithm for the parallel (simultaneous) estimation of multiple arbitrary phases. The protocol gives access to correlations in the Bayesian multi-ph…
This is a PhD dissertation on the latest numerical quantum estimation schemes as of 2012, submitted to the National University of Singapore. The main content of the thesis focuses on accessing quantum information with informationally incomplete measurements to reconstruct quantum states of large quantum systems, as well as to reduce the amount of resources to reconstruct quantum channels.
We investigate quantum parameter estimation based on linear and Kerr-type nonlinear controls in an open quantum system, and consider the dissipation rate as an unknown parameter. We show that while the precision of parameter estimation is improved, it usually introduces a significant deformation to the system state. Moreover, we propose a multi-objective model to optimize the two conflicting objectives: (1) maximizing the Fisher information, improving the parameter estimation precision, and (2) minimizing the deformation of the system state, which maintains its fidelity. Finally, simulations o…
We present a game-theoretic perspective on the problems of quantum state estimation and quantum cloning. This enables us to show why the focus on universal machines and the different measures of success, as employed in previous works, are in fact legitimite.
We address quantum critical systems as a resource in quantum estimation and derive the ultimate quantum limits to the precision of any estimator of the coupling parameters. In particular, if L denotes the size of a system and λis the relevant coupling parameters driving a quantum phase transition, we show that a precision improvement of order 1/L may be achieved in the estimation of λat the critical point compared to the non-critical case. We show that analogue results hold for temperature estimation in classical phase transitions. Results are illustrated by means of a specific example involvi…
Quantum estimation theory is a reformulation of random statistical theory with the modern language of quantum mechanics. In fact, the density operator plays a role similar to that of probability distribution functions in classical probability theory and statistics. However, the use of the probability distribution functions in classical theories is founded on premises that seem intuitively clear enough. Whereas in quantum theory, the situation with operators is different due to its non-commutativity nature. By exploiting this difference, quantum estimation theory aims to attain ultra-measuremen…
We study the simultaneous estimation of multiple phases as a discretised model for the imaging of a phase object. We identify quantum probe states that provide an enhancement compared to the best quantum scheme for the estimation of each individual phase separately, as well as improvements over classical strategies. Our strategy provides an advantage in the variance of the estimation over individual quantum estimation schemes that scales as O(d) where d is the number of phases. Finally, we study the attainability of this limit using realistic probes and photon-number-resolving detectors. This …
The use of classical multiple-pass approach for phase estimation which mimics the behavior of the N00N states, is compared with quantum techniques. It is shown that in the presence of losses its performance is significantly worse than the one of the optimal quantum strategy.
We analyze the estimation of a finite ensemble of quantum bits which have been sent through a depolarizing channel. Instead of using the depolarized qubits directly, we first apply a purification step and show that this improves the fidelity of subsequent quantum estimation. Even though we lose some qubits of our finite ensemble the information is concentrated in the remaining purified ones.
Many quantum algorithms contain an important subroutine, the quantum amplitude estimation. As the name implies, this is essentially the parameter estimation problem and thus can be handled via the established statistical estimation theory. However, this problem has an intrinsic difficulty that the system, i.e., the real quantum computing device, inevitably introduces unknown noise; the probability distribution model then has to incorporate many nuisance noise parameters, resulting that the construction of an optimal estimator becomes inefficient and difficult. For this problem, we apply the th…
We present a framework for the quantum enhanced estimation of multiple parameters corresponding to non-commuting unitary generators. Our formalism provides a recipe for the simultaneous estimation of all three components of a magnetic field. We propose a probe state that surpasses the precision of estimating the three components individually and discuss measurements that come close to attaining the quantum limit. Our study also reveals that too much quantum entanglement may be detrimental to attaining the Heisenberg scaling in quantum metrology.
This dissertation explores the topics of parameter estimation and model reduction in the context of quantum filtering. Chapters 2 and 3 provide a review of classical and quantum probability theory, stochastic calculus and filtering. Chapter 4 studies the problem of quantum parameter estimation and introduces the quantum particle filter as a practical computational method for parameter estimation via continuous measurement. Chapter 5 applies these techniques in magnetometry and studies the estimator's uncertainty scalings in a double-pass atomic magnetometer. Chapter 6 presents an efficient fee…
We study the interplay of control and parameter estimation on a quantum spin chain. A single qubit probe is attached to one end of the chain, while we wish to estimate a parameter on the other end. We find that control on the probe qubit can substantially improve the estimation performance and discover some interesting connections to quantum state transfer.
We provide a general framework for quantifying the optimal tradeoff between the information retrieved by a quantum measurement and the disturbance on the quantum state in covariant quantum state estimation.
We derive a lower bound for the optimal fidelity for deterministic cloning a set of n pure states. In connection with states estimation, we obtain a lower bound about average maximum correct states estimation probability.
We experimentally demonstrate optomechanical motion and force measurements near the quantum precision limits set by the quantum Cramér-Rao bounds (QCRBs). Optical beams in coherent and phase-squeezed states are used to measure the motion of a mirror under an external stochastic force. Utilizing optical phase tracking and quantum smoothing techniques, we achieve position, momentum, and force estimation accuracies close to the QCRBs with the coherent state, while estimation using squeezed states shows clear quantum enhancements beyond the coherent-state bounds.
Quantum-enhanced parameter estimation has widespread applications in many fields. An important issue is to protect the estimation precision against the noise-induced decoherence. Here we develop a general theoretical framework for improving the precision for estimating an arbitrary parameter by monitoring the noise-induced quantum trajectorie (MQT) and establish its connections to the purification-based approach to quantum parameter estimation. MQT can be achieved in two ways: (i) Any quantum trajectories can be monitored by directly monitoring the environment, which is experimentally challeng…
We explore the task of optimal quantum channel identification, and in particular the estimation of a general one parameter quantum process. We derive new characterizations of optimality and apply the results to several examples including the qubit depolarizing channel and the harmonic oscillator damping channel. We also discuss the geometry of the problem and illustrate the usefulness of using entanglement in process estimation.
We advocate a Bayesian approach to optimal quantum frequency estimation - an important issue for future quantum enhanced atomic clock operation. The approach provides a clear insight into the interplay between decoherence and the extent of the prior knowledge in determining the optimal interrogation times and optimal estimation strategies. We propose a general framework capable of describing local oscillator noise as well as additional collective atomic dephasing effects. For a Gaussian noise the average Bayesian cost can be expressed using the quantum Fisher information and thus we establish …
The maximum-likelihood method for quantum estimation is reviewed and applied to the reconstruction of density matrix of spin and radiation as well as to the determination of several parameters of interest in quantum optics.
