Sub shot-noise frequency estimation with bounded a priori knowledge

Abstract

We analyze an efficient frequency estimation scheme that is applied to measure the unknown frequency of an atomic state in Ramsey spectroscopy. The scheme is employing appropriate combinations of uncorrelated probe atoms and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) type correlated probe atoms to estimate its frequency. The estimation value of frequency is obtained through the Bayesian analysis of the final measurement outcomes. The proposed scheme allows us to obtain better precision than the scheme without quantum correlation and it also prevents us from ambiguity in the frequency estimation procedure with GHZ correlations only. We show that the scheme can beat the shot-noise limit and, in addition, it is found that there is a trade-off relation between the precision of the frequency estimation and the decoherence rate in the atomic states.