Quantum metrology with critical driven-dissipative collective spin system

Abstract

We propose two critical dissipative quantum metrology schemes for single parameter estimation which are based on a quantum probe consisting of a coherently driven ensemble of N spin-1/2 particles under the effect of a collective spin decay. The collective spin system exhibits a dissipative phase transition between thermal and ferromagnetic phases, which is characterized by a nonanalytical behavior of the spin observables. We show that thanks to the dissipative phase transition the sensitivity of the parameter estimation can be significantly enhanced. Furthermore, we show that our steady state is a spin squeezed state which allows one to perform parameter estimation with sub shot-noise limited measurement uncertainty.