Bypassing thermalization timescales in temperature estimation using prethermal probes
Nicholas Anto-Sztrikacs, Harry J. D. Miller, Ahsan Nazir, and Dvira Segal
Phys. Rev. A 109, L060201 (2024) - Published 27 June, 2024
The authors consider time as a resource in thermometry. Noninvasive equilibrium probes are limited by their slow equilibration time. To overcome this deficiency, the authors introduce prethermal temperature probes, making use of the long-lived metastable states of systems with quasidegenerate excited states. Prethermal probes are shown to surpass corresponding equilibrium probes in terms of effective thermal sensitivity, opening avenues for rapid thermometry.














