- Accepted Paper
Sequential measurements as a resource in ancilla-assisted quantum metrology
Phys. Rev. A - Accepted 29 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/866f-xmqx
Phys. Rev. A - Accepted 29 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/866f-xmqx
We present a protocol for simultaneous estimation of both quadratures of a displacement channel on a quantum harmonic oscillator using a single ancilla qubit, without complex state preparation or adaptive control. The qubit is coupled to the quantum harmonic oscillator via controlled displacements of strength and undergoes rounds of measurement and reset, while the oscillator coherently accumulates the displacement signal. Energy is injected and the non-commuting displacements imprint an order-dependent geometric phase at each round, giving a quantum Fisher information that scales as . Although the measurement record space grows as , we show that exact likelihoods for any individual measurement record can be computed in time. We show that measurement in the computational basis approximately saturates the quantum bound and maintains the scaling. Furthermore, the periodic information extraction makes the protocol robust to decoherence. Our results provide a framework for the design and analysis of sequential measurement in ancilla-assisted protocols.
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