Repeater-enhanced distributed quantum sensing based on continuous-variable multipartite entanglement

Abstract: Entanglement is a unique resource for quantum-enhanced applications. When employed in sensing, shared entanglement between distributed quantum sensors enables a substantial gain in the measurement sensitivity in estimating global parameters of the quantum sensor network. Loss incurred in the distribution of entanglement, however, quickly dissipates the measurement-sensitivity advantage enjoyed by the entangled quantum sensors over sensors supplied with local quantum resources. Here, we present a viable approach to overcome the entanglement-distribution loss and show that the measurement sensitivity enabled by entangled quantum sensors beat that afforded by the optimum local resource. Our approach relies on noiseless linear amplifiers (NLAs) to serve as quantum repeaters. We show that unlike the outstanding challenge of building quantum repeaters to suppress the repeaterless bound for quantum key distribution, NLA-based quantum repeaters for distributed quantum sensing are realizable by available technology. As such, distributed quantum sensing would become the first application instance that benefits from quantum repeaters.