Zeno limit in frequency estimation with non-Markovian environments

Abstract

A quantum system can be prepared in an entangled state that is very sensitive to changes introduced to its dynamics and thus potentially can be utilized as a precise sensor of dynamics parameters. $N$ entangled two-level atoms evolving unitarily can be used for frequency estimation with Heisenberg-limited precision which scales as ${N}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$, whereas uncorrelated states give only a standard-limited precision which scales as ${N}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$. As entangled states are also sensitive to disturbances introduced by interactions with external environments, quantum enhancement of the precision may be significantly limited for open quantum systems. This is the case when an interaction with an environment leads to local Markovian dephasing and the precision scales as ${N}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ for all atom preparations. For local non-Markovian dephasing, however, Matsuzaki et al. [Phys. Rev. A 84, 012103 (2011)] and Chin et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 233601 (2012)] showed that the atoms prepared in the maximally entangled state achieve Zeno scaling $\ensuremath{\propto}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{N}^{\ensuremath{-}3/2}$ in precision and argued that this limit should hold for any entangled state. Here we prove that Zeno scaling is indeed the best possible scaling for all local non-Markovian dephasing models which feature initial Zeno dynamics. Moreover, Zeno scaling can hold only for experiments in the Zeno-dynamics regime, otherwise scaling of the precision is standard.