Dissipative quantum metrology in manybody systems of identical particles

Abstract

Estimation of physical parameters is essential in almost any part of science and technology. The enhancement of performance in this task (e.g. beating the standard classical shot-noise limit) using available physical resources is a major goal in metrology. Quantum metrology in closed systems has indicated that entanglement in such systems may be a useful resource. However, whether in open quantum systems such enhancements may still show up is not yet fully understood. Here, we consider a dissipative (open) quantum system of identical particles in which a parameter of the open dynamics itself is to be estimated. We employ a recently developed dissipative quantum metrology framework, and investigate whether the entanglement produced in the course of the dissipative dynamics may help the estimation task. Specifically, we show that, even in a Markovian dynamics in which states become less distinguishable in time, at small enough times the entanglement generated by the dynamics may offer some advantage over the classical shot-noise limit. © 2014 IOP Publishing and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.