Noise-assisted Ramsey interferometry

Abstract

I analyze a metrological strategy for improving the precision of frequency estimation via Ramsey interferometry with strings of atoms in the presence of correlated dephasing. This strategy does not employ entangled states but rather a product state which evolves into a stationary state under the influence of correlated dephasing. It is shown that by using this state an improvement in precision compared to standard Ramsey interferometry can be gained. This improvement is not an improvement in scaling; i.e., the estimation precision has the same scaling with the number of atoms as the standard quantum limit but gains an improvement proportional to the free evolution time in the Ramsey interferometer. Since a stationary state is used, this evolution time can be substantially larger than in standard Ramsey interferometry which is limited by the coherence time of the atoms. © 2013 American Physical Society.