Nonclassical correlations for quantum metrology in thermal equilibrium

Abstract

Nonclassical correlations beyond entanglement might provide a resource in quantum information tasks, such as quantum computation or quantum metrology. Quantum discord is a measure of nonclassical correlations, to which entanglement belongs as a subset. Exploring the operational meaning of quantum discord as a resource in quantum information processing tasks, such as quantum metrology, is of essential importance to our understanding of nonclassical correlations. In our recent work [Phys. Rev. A, 98, 012115 (2018)], we considered a protocol---which we call the greedy local thermometry protocol--- for estimating the temperature of thermal equilibrium states from local measurements, elucidating the role of diagonal discord in enhancing the protocol sensitivity in the high-temperature limit. In this paper, we extend our results to a general greedy local parameter estimation scenario. In particular, we introduce a quantum discord---which we call discord for local metrology---to quantify the nonclassical correlations induced by the local optimal measurement on the subsystem. We demonstrate explicitly that discord for local metrology plays a role in sensitivity enhancement in the high-temperature limit by showing its relation to loss in quantum Fisher information. In particular, it coincides with diagonal discord for estimating a linear coupling parameter.