Qubit Quantum Metrology with Limited Measurement Resources

Abstract: Quantum resources, such as entanglement, can decrease the uncertainty of a parameter-estimation procedure beyond what is classically possible. This phenomenon is well described for noiseless systems with asymptotically many measurement resources by the Quantum Cramer-Rao Bound, but no general description exists for the regime of limited measurement resources. We address this problem by defining a Bayesian quantifier for uncertainty suitable for the regime of limited resources, and by developing a mathematical description for a parameter-estimation procedure which uses qubit probes to estimate a rotation angle induced on them. We simulate the qubit estimation scheme in the regime of limited resources using a single class of probe states. We find that, in noiseless systems, entanglement between qubits always decreases the uncertainty of the estimation; however, the quantum advantage decreases as fewer qubits are used in the estimation. We also find that the presence of strong dephasing noise removes the quantum advantage completely, regardless of the number of qubit probes used.