Full-Period Quantum Phase Estimation
Li-Zheng Liu, Yue-Yang Fei, Yingqiu Mao, Yi Hu, Rui Zhang, Xu-Fei Yin, Xiao Jiang, Li Li, Nai-Le Liu, Feihu Xu, Yu-Ao Chen, Jian-Wei Pan
Abstract
Quantum sensing can provide the superior sensitivity for sensing a physical quantity beyond the shot-noise limit. In practice, however, this technique has been limited to the issues of phase ambiguity and low sensitivity for small-scale probe states. Here, we propose and demonstrate a full-period quantum phase estimation approach by adopting the Kitaev's phase estimation algorithm to eliminate the phase ambiguity and using the GHZ states to obtain phase value, simultaneously. For an N-party entangled state, our approach can achieve an upper bound of sensitivity of δθ=sqrt[3/(N^{2}+2N)], which beats the limit of adaptive Bayesian estimation. By performing an eight-photon experiment, we demonstrate the estimation of unknown phases in a full period, and observe the phase superresolution and sensitivity beyond the shot-noise limit. Our Letter provides a new way for quantum sensing and represents a solid step towards its general applications.