Thermometry by correlated dephasing of impurities in a 1D Fermi gas

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the pure dephasing dynamics of two static impurity qubits embedded within a common environment of ultracold fermionic atoms, which are confined to one spatial dimension. Our goal is to understand how bath-mediated interactions between impurities affect their performance as nonequilibrium quantum thermometers. By solving the dynamics exactly using a functional determinant approach, we show that the impurities become correlated via retarded interactions of the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida type. Moreover, we demonstrate that these correlations can provide a metrological advantage, enhancing the sensitivity of the two-qubit thermometer beyond that of two independent impurities. This enhancement is most prominent in the limit of low temperature and weak collisional coupling between the impurities and the gas. We show that this precision advantage can be exploited using standard Ramsey interferometry, with no need to prepare correlated initial states nor to individually manipulate or measure the impurities. We also quantitatively assess the impact of ignoring these correlations when constructing a temperature estimate, finding that acceptable precision can still be achieved from a simplified model of independent impurities. Our results demonstrate the rich nonequilibrium physics of impurities dephasing in a common Fermi gas, and may help to provide better temperature estimates at ultralow temperatures.