The control over quantum states in atomic systems has led to the most precise optical atomic clocks so far. Their sensitivity is bounded at present by the standard quantum limit, a fundamental floor set by quantum mechanics for uncorrelated particles, which can—nevertheless—be overcome when operated with entangled particles. Yet demonstrating a quantum advantage in real-world sensors is extremely challenging. Here we illustrate a pathway for harnessing large-scale entanglement in an optical transition using 1D chains of up to 51 ions with interactions that decay as a power-law function of the ion separation. We show that our sensor can emulate many features of the one-axis-twisting (OAT) model, an iconic, fully connected model known to generate scalable squeezing4 and Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger-like states5,6,7,8. The collective nature of the state manifests itself in the preservation of the total transverse magnetization, the reduced growth of the structure factor, that is, spin-wave excitations (SWE), at finite momenta, the generation of spin squeezing comparable with OAT (a Wineland parameter9,10 of −3.9 ± 0.3 dB for only N = 12 ions) and the development of non-Gaussian states in the form of multi-headed cat states in the Q-distribution. We demonstrate the metrological utility of the states in a Ramsey-type interferometer, in which we reduce the measurement uncertainty by −3.2 ± 0.5 dB below the standard quantum limit for N = 51 ions.
BT - Nature DA - 2023-08 DO - 10.1038/s41586-023-06472-z N2 -The control over quantum states in atomic systems has led to the most precise optical atomic clocks so far. Their sensitivity is bounded at present by the standard quantum limit, a fundamental floor set by quantum mechanics for uncorrelated particles, which can—nevertheless—be overcome when operated with entangled particles. Yet demonstrating a quantum advantage in real-world sensors is extremely challenging. Here we illustrate a pathway for harnessing large-scale entanglement in an optical transition using 1D chains of up to 51 ions with interactions that decay as a power-law function of the ion separation. We show that our sensor can emulate many features of the one-axis-twisting (OAT) model, an iconic, fully connected model known to generate scalable squeezing4 and Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger-like states5,6,7,8. The collective nature of the state manifests itself in the preservation of the total transverse magnetization, the reduced growth of the structure factor, that is, spin-wave excitations (SWE), at finite momenta, the generation of spin squeezing comparable with OAT (a Wineland parameter9,10 of −3.9 ± 0.3 dB for only N = 12 ions) and the development of non-Gaussian states in the form of multi-headed cat states in the Q-distribution. We demonstrate the metrological utility of the states in a Ramsey-type interferometer, in which we reduce the measurement uncertainty by −3.2 ± 0.5 dB below the standard quantum limit for N = 51 ions.
PB - Springer Science and Business Media LLC PY - 2023 EP - 740 T2 - Nature TI - Quantum-enhanced sensing on optical transitions through finite-range interactions VL - 621 ER -