Nonlinear Heisenberg Limit via Uncertainty Principle in Quantum Metrology

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Xia, Binke, Huang, Jingzheng, Yang, Yuxiang, Zeng, Guihua
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866908585966960640
author Xia, Binke
Huang, Jingzheng
Yang, Yuxiang
Zeng, Guihua
author_facet Xia, Binke
Huang, Jingzheng
Yang, Yuxiang
Zeng, Guihua
contents The Heisenberg limit is acknowledged as the ultimate precision limit in quantum metrology, traditionally implying that root mean square errors of parameter estimation decrease linearly with the time T of evolution and the number N of quantum gates or probes. However, this conventional perspective fails to interpret recent studies of "super-Heisenberg" scaling, where precision improves faster than linearly with T and N. In this work, we revisit the Heisenberg scaling by leveraging the position-momentum uncertainty relation in parameter space and characterizing precision in terms of the corresponding canonical momentum. This reformulation not only accounts for time and energy resources, but also incorporates underlying resources arising from noncommutativity and quantum superposition. By introducing a generating process with indefinite time direction, which involves noncommutative quantum operations and superposition of time directions, we obtain a quadratic increment in the canonical momentum, thereby achieving a nonlinear-scaling precision limit with respect to T and N. Then we experimentally demonstrate in quantum optical systems that this nonlinear-scaling enhancement can be achieved with a fixed probe energy. Our results provide a deeper insight into the Heisenberg limit in quantum metrology, and shed new light on enhancing precision in practical quantum metrological and sensing tasks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_09216
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Nonlinear Heisenberg Limit via Uncertainty Principle in Quantum Metrology
Xia, Binke
Huang, Jingzheng
Yang, Yuxiang
Zeng, Guihua
Quantum Physics
The Heisenberg limit is acknowledged as the ultimate precision limit in quantum metrology, traditionally implying that root mean square errors of parameter estimation decrease linearly with the time T of evolution and the number N of quantum gates or probes. However, this conventional perspective fails to interpret recent studies of "super-Heisenberg" scaling, where precision improves faster than linearly with T and N. In this work, we revisit the Heisenberg scaling by leveraging the position-momentum uncertainty relation in parameter space and characterizing precision in terms of the corresponding canonical momentum. This reformulation not only accounts for time and energy resources, but also incorporates underlying resources arising from noncommutativity and quantum superposition. By introducing a generating process with indefinite time direction, which involves noncommutative quantum operations and superposition of time directions, we obtain a quadratic increment in the canonical momentum, thereby achieving a nonlinear-scaling precision limit with respect to T and N. Then we experimentally demonstrate in quantum optical systems that this nonlinear-scaling enhancement can be achieved with a fixed probe energy. Our results provide a deeper insight into the Heisenberg limit in quantum metrology, and shed new light on enhancing precision in practical quantum metrological and sensing tasks.
title Nonlinear Heisenberg Limit via Uncertainty Principle in Quantum Metrology
topic Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09216