Periodic Reporting for period 1 - STORMYTUNE (Spectral-Temporal Metrology with Tailored Quantum Measurements)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2020-10-01 al 2022-03-31
This is where the work of STORMYTUNE comes in. We will develop a theoretical and experimental toolbox for time-frequency quantum metrology and explore possible avenues for improving applications using our methods. In contrast to other approaches to quantum metrology that mainly focus on using fragile probe states, we will investigate the achievable benefits when using quantum measurements and simple, robust probe states. Further, we aim to improve the performance of our techniques by adding the ideas of superresolution measurements and compressed sensing to time-frequency quantum metrology, thus reducing measurement times even more.
The STORMYTUNE consortium comprises world-leading scientists and industry partners, who are ideally positioned to achieve the project goals. For this research, we have identified three strategic objectives that will guide our efforts.
- Objective 1: Develop a time-frequency quantum metrology toolbox that comprises of the tools and methods for investigating the limits of temporal and spectral measurements using quantum mechanics.
- Objective 2: Investigate the limits of time-frequency quantum metrology with regards to the ultimate measurement precision, the resource consumption, and the ease of implementation.
- Objective 3: Implement proof-of-concept demonstrations that show a clear benefit of quantum metrology when compared to standard measurements and that exploit techniques from superresolution measurements and compressed sensing.
We are also using our theory to investigate the ultimate measurement precision for different scenarios. Here, we take special care to consider experimental imperfections. These may reduce the achievable precision and we are working out just how imperfect our experiments can afford to be without losing the quantum benefit.
Finally, we have demonstrated a quantum advantage in measurement precision in several scenarios. We have performed a so-called multi-parameter estimation experiment, where we tried to simultaneously measure the timing separation, the joint arrival time, and the intensity difference of two light pulses. Although this sounds highly academical, such scenarios are of general interest as they describe the application of measuring backscattered light. This can, for instance, occur in material testing, where light pulses are used to probe the uniformity of a surface. We succeeded in identifying and realizing measurements that allowed us to extract all three parameters with quantum-limited precision. We also had a first go at adding compressed sensing techniques to these measurements. As an example, we were interested in reconstructing the spectral and temporal content of an unknown light pulse with as few measurements as possible. Typically, compressed sensing requires some knowledge about the object under investigations. Our methods forego this knowledge and allow us to characterize unknown light pulses quickly and efficiently. Finally, we have measured the noise of commercial laser systems with a precision beyond standard noise measurements. Lasers are an important part of today’s economy and being able to characterize them better of faster is interesting from both a science and application point of view.