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Quantum limits of thermometry

Source: Phys. Rev. A 82, 011611 (2010); doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.82.011611

Published 30 July 2010

PACS
  • 03.75.Dg
    Atom and neutron interferometry
  • 07.20.Dt
    Thermometers
  • 03.67.Ac
    Quantum algorithms, protocols and simulations
  • YEAR: 2010
PUBLICATION DATA
Publisher:
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Thomas M. Stace
Department of Physics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia
The precision of typical thermometers consisting of N particles scales as ~1/sqrt(N). For high-precision thermometry and thermometric standards, this presents an important theoretical noise floor. Here it is demonstrated that thermometry may be mapped onto the problem of phase estimation, and using techniques from optimal phase estimation, it follows that the scaling of the precision of a thermometer may in principle be improved to ~1/N, representing a Heisenberg limit to thermometry. ©2010 The American Physical Society
History: Received 18 May 2010; published 30 July 2010
Permalink: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v82/e011611
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