Measurement of damping and temperature: Precision bounds in Gaussian dissipative channels

Abstract

We present a comprehensive analysis of the performance of different classes of Gaussian states in the estimation of Gaussian phase-insensitive dissipative channels. In particular, we investigate the optimal estimation of the damping constant and reservoir temperature. We show that, for two-mode squeezed vacuum probe states, the quantum-limited accuracy of both parameters can be achieved simultaneously. Moreover, we show that for both parameters two-mode squeezed vacuum states are more efficient than either coherent, thermal or single-mode squeezed states. This suggests that at high energy regimes two-mode squeezed vacuum states are optimal within the Gaussian setup. This optimality result indicates a stronger form of compatibility for the estimation of the two parameters. Indeed, not only the minimum variance can be achieved at fixed probe states, but also the optimal state is common to both parameters. Additionally, we explore numerically the performance of non-Gaussian states for particular parameter values to find that maximally entangled states within D-dimensional cutoff subspaces perform better than any randomly sampled states with similar energy. However, we also find that states with very similar performance and energy exist with much less entanglement than the maximally entangled ones.