Enhanced Squeezing and Faster Metrology from Layered Quantum Neural Networks

Abstract: Spin squeezing is a powerful resource for quantum metrology, and recent hardware platforms based on interacting qubits provide multiple possible architectures to generate and reverse squeezing during a sensing protocol. In this work, we compare the sensing performance of three such architectures: quantum reservoir computers (QRCs), quantum perceptrons, and multi-layer quantum neural networks (QNNs), when used as squeezing-based field sensors. For all models, we consider a standard metrological sequence consisting of coherent-spin preparation, one-axis-twisting dynamics, field encoding via a weak rotation, time-reversal, and collective readout. We show that a single quantum perceptron generates the same optimal sensitivity as a QRC, but in the perturbative regime it benefits from accelerated squeezing due to steering by the output qubit. Stacking perceptrons into a QNN further amplifies this effect: in a 2-layer QNN with N_in input and N_out output qubits, the optimal squeezing time is reduced by a factor of N_out, while the achievable phase sensitivity remains Heisenberg-limited, Delta phi ~ 1/(N_in + N_out). Moreover, if the layers are used sequentially, first using the outputs to squeeze the inputs and then the inputs to squeeze the outputs, the two contributions to the response add constructively. This yields a sqrt(2) enhancement in sensitivity over a QRC when N_in = N_out and requires shorter total squeezing time. Generalizing to L layers, we show that the metrological gain scales as sqrt(L) while the required squeezing time decreases as 1/N_l, where N_l is the number of qubits per layer. Our results demonstrate that the structure of quantum neural networks can be exploited not only for computation, but also to engineer faster and more sensitive squeezing-based quantum sensors.