Bounds on adaptive quantum metrology under Markovian noise

Abstract

We analyze the problem of estimating a scalar parameter g that controls the Hamiltonian of a quantum system subject to Markovian noise. Specifically, we place bounds on the growth rate of the quantum Fisher information with respect to g, in terms of the Lindblad operators and the g derivative of the Hamiltonian H. Our new bounds are not only more generally applicable than those in the literature - for example, they apply to systems with time-dependent Hamiltonians and/or Lindblad operators, and to infinite-dimensional systems such as oscillators - but are also tighter in the settings where previous bounds do apply. We derive our bounds directly from the master equation describing the system, without needing to discretize its time evolution. We also use our results to investigate how sensitive a single detection system can be to signals with different time dependences. We demonstrate that the sensitivity bandwidth is related to the quantum fluctuations of ∂H/∂g, illustrating how "nonclassical"states can enhance the range of signals that a system is sensitive to, even when they cannot increase its peak sensitivity.