Entanglement assisted metrology

We propose a new approach to the measurement of a single spin state, based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques and inspired by the coherent control over many-body systems envisaged by quantum information processing. A single target spin is coupled via the magnetic dipolar interaction to a large ensemble of spins. Applying radio frequency pulses, we can control the evolution so that the spin ensemble reaches one of two orthogonal states whose collective properties differ depending on the state of the target spin and are easily measured. We first describe this measurement process using quantum gates; then we show how equivalent schemes can be defined in terms of the Hamiltonian and thus implemented under conditions of real control, using well established NMR techniques. We demonstrate this method with a proof of principle experiment in ensemble liquid state NMR and simulations for small spin systems.