As the minituarization of electronic devices, which are sensitive to temperature, grows apace, sensing of temperature with ever smaller probes is more important than ever. Genuinely quantum mechanical schemes of thermometry are thus expected to be crucial to future technological progress. We propose an alternative method to measure the temperature of a bath using the weak measurement scheme with a finite-dimensional probe. The precision offered by the present scheme not only shows similar qualitative features as the usual quantum-Fisher-information-based thermometric protocols, but also allows for flexibility over setting the optimal thermometric window through the judicious choice of postselection measurements.

We develop an efficient algorithm for determining optimal adaptive quantum estimation protocols with arbitrary quantum control operations between subsequent uses of a probed channel. We introduce a tensor network representation of an estimation strategy, which drastically reduces the time and memory consumption of the algorithm, and allows us to analyze metrological protocols involving up to N=50 qubit channel uses, whereas the state-of-the-art approaches are limited to N<5. The method is applied to study the performance of the optimal adaptive metrological protocols in presence of various noise types, including correlated noise.

An evolution of a two-level system (qubit) interacting with a single-photon wave packet is analyzed. It is shown that a hierarchy of master equations gives rise to phase covariant qubit evolution. The temporal correlations in the input field induce nontrivial memory effects for the evolution of a qubit. It is shown that in the resonant case whenever time-local generator is regular (does not display singularities) the qubit evolution never displays information backflow. However, in general the generator might be highly singular leading to intricate non-Markovian effects. A detailed analysis of the exponential profile is provided which allows to illustrate all characteristic feature of the qubit evolution.

We discuss a model of a closed quantum evolution of two qubits where the joint Hamiltonian is so chosen such that one of the qubits acts as a bath and thermalizes the other qubit which is acting as the system. The corresponding exact master equation for the system is derived. Interestingly, for a specific choice of parameters the master equation takes the Gorini-Kossakowski-Lindblad-Sudarshan (GKLS) form, with constant coefficients representing pumping and damping of a single qubit system. Based on this model we construct an Otto cycle connected to a single qubit bath and study its thermodynamic properties. Our analysis goes beyond the conventional weak coupling scenario and illustrates the effects of finite baths, including non-Markovianity. We find closed form expressions for efficiency (coefficient of performance), power (cooling power) for the heat engine regime (refrigerator regime), and for different modifications of the joint Hamiltonian.

A new class of positive maps is introduced. It interpolates between positive and completely positive maps. It is shown that this class gives rise to a new characterization of entangled states. Additionally, it provides a refinement of the well-known classes of entangled states characterized in terms of the Schmidt number. The analysis is illustrated with examples of qubit maps.

Sagnik Chakraborty, Dariusz Chruściński, Gniewomir Sarbicki, and Frederik vom Ende, Quantum 4, 360 (2020). We address the problem of existence of completely positive trace preserving (CPTP) maps between two sets of density matrices. We refine the result of Alberti and Uhlmann and derive a necessa…