Quantum-enhanced sensing in a driven-dissipative system via chiral waveguide

Abstract

Quantum sensors can achieve precision unattainable by classical sensors. However, dissipation coming from interaction with the environment can greatly degrade the performance of quantum sensors. Therefore, it is crucial to attempt harnessing dissipation to our advantage and investigate the sensing performance of driven-dissipative systems to gain practical quantum advantages. In this paper, we study a system of two-level systems driven coherently at a detuned frequency, and importantly, connected to a chiral waveguide that serves both as an interaction mediator and a bath. We show analytically that the steady state of such a system shows enhanced sensitivity to estimate weak detuning strength while the probe preparation time only grows linearly with system size. Therefore, the enhanced sensitivity is sustained even when the preparation time is incorporated. We further establish measurement protocols to achieve such sensitivity that are experimentally implementable. The chirality of the waveguide helps us to control both precision and range of enhanced sensitivity.

5+16 pages, 5 figures