Adiabatic critical quantum metrology cannot reach the Heisenberg limit even when shortcuts to adiabaticity are applied

We show that the quantum Fisher information attained in an adiabatic approach to critical quantum metrology cannot lead to the Heisenberg limit of precision and therefore regular quantum metrology under optimal settings is always superior. Furthermore, we argue that even though shortcuts to adiabaticity can arbitrarily decrease the time of preparing critical ground states, they cannot be used to achieve or overcome the Heisenberg limit for quantum parameter estimation in adiabatic critical quantum metrology. As case studies, we explore the application of counter-diabatic driving to the Landau-Zener model and the quantum Rabi model.

Efficient qubit phase estimation using adaptive measurements

Estimating correctly the quantum phase of a physical system is a central problem in quantum parameter estimation theory due to its wide range of applications from quantum metrology to cryptography. Ideally, the optimal quantum estimator is given by the so-called quantum Cramér-Rao bound, so any measurement strategy aims to obtain estimations as close as possible to it. However, more often than not, the current state-of-the-art methods to estimate quantum phases fail to reach this bound as they rely on maximum likelihood estimators of non-identifiable likelihood functions. In this work we thoroughly review various schemes for estimating the phase of a qubit, identifying the underlying problem which prohibits these methods to reach the quantum Cramér-Rao bound, and propose a new adaptive scheme based on covariant measurements to circumvent this problem. Our findings are carefully checked by Monte Carlo simulations, showing that the method we propose is both mathematically and experimentally more realistic and more efficient than the methods currently available.

Squeezed lasing

We introduce the idea of a squeezed laser, in which a squeezed cavity mode develops a macroscopic photonic occupation powered by stimulated emission. Above the lasing threshold, the emitted light retains both the spectral purity inherent of a laser and the photon correlations characteristic of a photonic mode with squeezed quadratures. Our proposal, which can be implemented in optical setups, relies on the parametric driving of the cavity and dissipative stabilization by a broadband squeezed vacuum. We show that the squeezed laser can find applications going beyond those of standard lasers thanks to the squeezed character, such as enhanced operation in multi-photon microscopy or Heisenberg scaling of the Fisher information in quantum parameter estimation.