Dynamical decoupling leads to improved scaling in noisy quantum metrology

Abstract

We consider the usage of dynamical decoupling in quantum metrology, where the joint evolution of system plus environment is described by a Hamiltonian. We show that by ultra-fast unitary control operations acting locally only on system qubits, noise can be eliminated while the desired evolution is only reduced by at most a constant factor, leading to Heisenberg scaling. We identify all kinds of noise where such an approach is applicable. Only noise that is generated by the Hamiltonian to be estimated itself cannot be altered. However, even for such parallel noise, one can achieve an improved scaling as compared to the standard quantum limit for any local noise by means of symmetrization. Our results are also applicable in other schemes based on dynamical decoupling, e.g. the generation of high-fidelity entangling gates.