Enhancement of low-temperature thermometry by strong coupling

We consider the problem of estimating the temperature T of a very cold equilibrium sample. The temperature estimates are drawn from measurements performed on a quantum Brownian probe strongly coupled to it. We model this scenario by resorting to the canonical Caldeira-Leggett Hamiltonian and find an...

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Main Authors: Correa, Luis A., Perarnau-Llobet, Martí, Hovhannisyan, Karen V., Mehboudi, Mohammad, Hernández-Santana, Senaida, Sanpera, Anna
Format: Article
Published: American Physical Society 2017
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48572/
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author Correa, Luis A.
Perarnau-Llobet, Martí
Hovhannisyan, Karen V.
Mehboudi, Mohammad
Hernández-Santana, Senaida
Sanpera, Anna
author_facet Correa, Luis A.
Perarnau-Llobet, Martí
Hovhannisyan, Karen V.
Mehboudi, Mohammad
Hernández-Santana, Senaida
Sanpera, Anna
author_sort Correa, Luis A.
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description We consider the problem of estimating the temperature T of a very cold equilibrium sample. The temperature estimates are drawn from measurements performed on a quantum Brownian probe strongly coupled to it. We model this scenario by resorting to the canonical Caldeira-Leggett Hamiltonian and find analytically the exact stationary state of the probe for arbitrary coupling strength. In general, the probe does not reach thermal equilibrium with the sample, due to their nonperturbative interaction. We argue that this is advantageous for low-temperature thermometry, as we show in our model that (i) the thermometric precision at low T can be significantly enhanced by strengthening the probe-sampling coupling, (ii) the variance of a suitable quadrature of our Brownian thermometer can yield temperature estimates with nearly minimal statistical uncertainty, and (iii) the spectral density of the probe-sample coupling may be engineered to further improve thermometric performance. These observations may find applications in practical nanoscale thermometry at low temperatures—a regime which is particularly relevant to quantum technologies.
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spelling nottingham-485722020-05-04T19:21:06Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48572/ Enhancement of low-temperature thermometry by strong coupling Correa, Luis A. Perarnau-Llobet, Martí Hovhannisyan, Karen V. Mehboudi, Mohammad Hernández-Santana, Senaida Sanpera, Anna We consider the problem of estimating the temperature T of a very cold equilibrium sample. The temperature estimates are drawn from measurements performed on a quantum Brownian probe strongly coupled to it. We model this scenario by resorting to the canonical Caldeira-Leggett Hamiltonian and find analytically the exact stationary state of the probe for arbitrary coupling strength. In general, the probe does not reach thermal equilibrium with the sample, due to their nonperturbative interaction. We argue that this is advantageous for low-temperature thermometry, as we show in our model that (i) the thermometric precision at low T can be significantly enhanced by strengthening the probe-sampling coupling, (ii) the variance of a suitable quadrature of our Brownian thermometer can yield temperature estimates with nearly minimal statistical uncertainty, and (iii) the spectral density of the probe-sample coupling may be engineered to further improve thermometric performance. These observations may find applications in practical nanoscale thermometry at low temperatures—a regime which is particularly relevant to quantum technologies. American Physical Society 2017-12-04 Article PeerReviewed Correa, Luis A., Perarnau-Llobet, Martí, Hovhannisyan, Karen V., Mehboudi, Mohammad, Hernández-Santana, Senaida and Sanpera, Anna (2017) Enhancement of low-temperature thermometry by strong coupling. Physical Review A, 96 (6). 062103/1-062103/12. ISSN 1094-1622 https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.96.062103 doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.96.062103 doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.96.062103
spellingShingle Correa, Luis A.
Perarnau-Llobet, Martí
Hovhannisyan, Karen V.
Mehboudi, Mohammad
Hernández-Santana, Senaida
Sanpera, Anna
Enhancement of low-temperature thermometry by strong coupling
title Enhancement of low-temperature thermometry by strong coupling
title_full Enhancement of low-temperature thermometry by strong coupling
title_fullStr Enhancement of low-temperature thermometry by strong coupling
title_full_unstemmed Enhancement of low-temperature thermometry by strong coupling
title_short Enhancement of low-temperature thermometry by strong coupling
title_sort enhancement of low-temperature thermometry by strong coupling
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48572/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48572/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48572/