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  • Open Access

Quantum sensing in the vicinity of dissipative phase transition

Zhuowei Zhang1,2,* and Girish S. Agarwal1,2,3,†

  • 1Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA
  • 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA
  • 3Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA

  • *Contact author: zw.zhang@tamu.edu
  • †Contact author: Girish.Agarwal@ag.tamu.edu
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 033258 – Published 1 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/x7gn-pqzb

Abstract

Recently, there has been considerable interest in studying quantum sensing near the critical points of a system evolving unitarily and undergoing a phase transition. However, there are many quantum systems in which dissipation is very important. The quantum phase transition in such systems results as a result of competition between nonlinearity, drive, and dissipation. These quantum phase transitions belong to the class of nonequilibrium phase transitions. In this work, we present a detailed study of quantum sensing of the system parameters near the critical points of a dissipative phase transition. We illustrate the key results by considering a coherently driven nonlinear Kerr medium interacting with environment. The first-order quantum phase transition is characterized by the closing of the gap in eigenvalues of the underlying Liouvillian. The steady-state sensing away from the critical point has standard quantum limit scaling with respect to the effective system size, whereas Heisenberg scaling is found at the critical point. The latter is subject to a critical slowing down. We have also examined sensing of system parameters using the metastable states and find better sensing performance at intermediate timescales, i.e., when the system has not yet settled in steady state. Detailed results on the scaling behavior in different time domains are given.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 033258– Published 1 September, 2026
  • Received 5 May 2026
  • Accepted 11 August 2026
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