Quantum Sensing with Erasure Qubits

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of erasure qubits in quantum sensing, demonstrating theoretically and experimentally that they offer enhanced precision over traditional qubits under the same noise conditions.

Contribution

It introduces the application of erasure qubits to quantum sensing and provides experimental evidence of their improved precision in optical lattice clocks.

Findings

Erasure qubits improve sensing precision compared to non-erasure qubits.

Experimental validation using atom loss and dephasing errors in optical clocks.

Potential for enhanced quantum sensing in various platforms like Rydberg atoms.

Abstract

The dominant noise in an "erasure qubit" is an erasure -- a type of error whose occurrence and location can be detected. Erasure qubits have potential to reduce the overhead associated with fault tolerance. To date, research on erasure qubits has primarily focused on quantum computing and quantum networking applications. Here, we consider the applicability of erasure qubits to quantum sensing and metrology. We show theoretically that, for the same level of noise, an erasure qubit acts as a more precise sensor or clock compared to its non-erasure counterpart. We experimentally demonstrate this by artificially injecting either erasure errors (in the form of atom loss) or dephasing errors into a differential optical lattice clock comparison, and observe enhanced precision in the case of erasure errors for the same injected error rate. Similar benefits of erasure qubits to sensing can be realized in other quantum platforms like Rydberg atoms and superconducting qubits