Collective measurements can project a system into an entangled state with enhanced sensitivity for measuring a quantum phase, but measurement back-action has limited previous efforts to only modest improvements. Here we use a collective measurement to produce and directly observe, with no background subtraction, an entangled, spin-squeezed state with phase resolution improved in variance by a factor of 10.5(1.5), or 10.2(6) dB, compared to the initially unentangled ensemble of N = 4.8 x 10^5 87Rb atoms. The measurement uses a cavity-enhanced probe of an optical cycling transition to mitigate back-action associated with state-changing transitions induced by the probe. This work establishes collective measurements as a powerful technique for generating entanglement for precision measurement, with potential impacts in biological sensing, communication, navigation, and tests of fundamental physics.
@article{arxiv.1310.3177,
title = {Reduced back-action for phase sensitivity 10 times beyond the standard quantum limit},
author = {Justin G. Bohnet and Kevin C. Cox and Matthew A. Norcia and Joshua M. Weiner and Zilong Chen and James K. Thompson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1310.3177},
year = {2014}
}