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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Thresholded quantum sensing with a frustrated Kitaev trimer

C. Huerta Alderete1,2,*, Anubhav Kumar Srivastava3,4,*, Bharath Hebbe Madhusudhana5, and Andrew T. Sornborger1,2,†

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: sornborg@lanl.gov
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, L012057 – Published 6 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/3z2c-2kkl

Abstract

We investigate the response of a Ramsey interferometric quantum sensor based on a frustrated, three-spin system (a Kitaev trimer) to a classical time-dependent field (signal). The system eigenspectrum is symmetric about a critical point, |b|=0, with four of the spectral components varying approximately linearly with the magnetic field and four exhibiting a nonlinear dependence. Under the adiabatic approximation and for appropriate initial states, we show that the sensor's response to a zero-mean signal is such that below a threshold, |b|<bth, the sensor does not respond to the signal, whereas above the threshold, the sensor acts as a detector that the signal has occurred. This thresholded response is approximately omnidirectional. Moreover, when deployed in an entangled multisensor configuration, the sensor achieves sensitivity at the Heisenberg limit. Such detectors could be useful both as stand-alone units for signal detection above a noise threshold and in two- or three-dimensional arrays, analogous to a quantum bubble chamber, for applications such as particle track detection and long-baseline telescopy.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, L012057– Published 6 March, 2026
  • Received 31 July 2025
  • Accepted 9 February 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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