Spin Squeezing, Macrorealism and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle

Abstract

The work is organized in two main topics. At first we will outline the relation between spin squeezing, quantum metrology and entanglement detection, with a particular focus on the last. We will derive spin squeezing criteria for the detection of entanglement and its depth that outperform past approaches, especially for unpolarized states, recently produced in experiments and object of increasing interest in the community. Furthermore, we will extend the original definition of spin squeezed states by providing a new parameter that is thought to embrace different classes of states in a unified framework. Afterwards we consider a test of quantum principles in macroscopic objects originally designed by Leggett and Garg. In this case the scenario consists of a single party that is probed at different time instants and the quantum effect detected is the violation of Macrorealism (MR), due to strong correlations in time, rather than in space, between non-compatible observables. We will look at the problems of inconclusiveness of the LG tests arising from possible explanations of the results in terms of ``clumsy'' measurements, what has been termed ``clumsiness loophole''. We propose first a scheme to test and possibly falsify (MR) in macroscopic ensembles of cold atoms based on alternating Quantum Non-Demolition measurements and coherent, magnetically-driven collective spin rotations. Then we also propose a way to address the clumsiness loophole by introducing and computing an invasivity quantifier to add to the original LG expression. We provide numerical evidence that such a clumsiness-free test is feasible under state-of-the-art realistic experimental parameters and imperfections.