The quantum Allan variance

2016/01/31 by Krzysztof Chabuda, Ian D Leroux, Ian Leroux +2
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Frequency and Time Standards #Allan variance #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Atomic clock #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Measure (data warehouse) #Noise (video) #Quantum #Quantum decoherence #Stability (learning theory) #Variance (accounting) #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1367-2630/18/8/083035

published as New J. Phys. 18, 083035 (2016) · 17 pages, 2 figures

openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex publication_date 2016/08/18 · arxiv created 2016/08/28 · arxiv updated 2016/08/30 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

The instability of an atomic clock is characterized by the Allan variance, a measure widely used to describe the noise of frequency standards.We provide an explicit method to find the ultimate bound on the Allan variance of an atomic clock in the most general scenario where N atoms are prepared in an arbitrarily entangled state and arbitrary measurement and feedback are allowed, including those exploiting coherences between succeeding interrogation steps.While the method is rigorous and general, it becomes numerically challenging for large N and long averaging times.

Citations

• ‘Designer atoms’ for quantum metrology
• Spin squeezing and reduced quantum noise in spectroscopy
• The elusive Heisenberg limit in quantum-enhanced metrology
• General framework for estimating the ultimate precision limit in noisy quantum-enhanced metrology
• True precision limits in quantum metrology
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