Heisenberg-Limited Quantum Metrology without Ancilla

Abstract

The asymptotic theory of quantum channel estimation has been well established, but in general noiseless and controllable ancilla is required for attaining the ultimate limit in the asymptotic regime. Little is known about the metrological performance without noiseless ancilla, which is more relevant in practical circumstances. In this work, we present a novel theoretical framework to address this problem, bridging quantum metrology and the asymptotic theory of quantum channels. Leveraging this framework, we prove sufficient conditions for achieving the Heisenberg limit with repeated application of the channel to estimate, both with and without applying interleaved unitary control operations. For the latter case, we design an algorithm to identify the control operation. Finally, we analyze several intriguing examples by our approach.Comment: 15 pages + 2 figure