Beyond sensitivity: mechanism-resolved error budgets for designing quantum sensors
Abstract
Quantum sensors are specified by a headline sensitivity, yet applications also demand accuracy and reliability. The dominant limiter of one metric is often known, but no method resolves how interacting mechanisms combine into a signed, per-mechanism budget for each metric. We introduce a framework that computes a sensor's sensitivity, accuracy, and robustness from one open-system simulation and attributes each to its limiting mechanism. For a nitrogen-vacancy diamond ensemble the attribution inverts across metrics: dephasing limits sensitivity, the thermal ground-state shift limits accuracy, and optical leakage limits robustness. At identical sensitivity the recovered-field bias spans $8$ to $1500$\,nT, so tuning to sensitivity alone can miss the accuracy target by two orders of magnitude. The same modeling transfers to a cesium optically pumped magnetometer recording a human magnetocardiogram. As a digital twin, it predicts the gain from addressing each limiter, so sensors can be designed to the required metrics.
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BibTeX
@misc{leclerc2026beyond,
title = {{Beyond sensitivity: mechanism-resolved error budgets for designing quantum sensors}},
author = {Nima Leclerc and Marco Capelli and Kevin James Rietwyk and Mark Dong and Dmitry Lyakh and Geoffrey Iwata and Brandon Rodenburg and Sean Oliver and Benedikt Kloss and Jin-Sung Kim and Stefan Bogdanovic and Yunheng Chen and Meysam Sharifzadeh Mirshekarloo and Cedric Weber and Marcus Doherty and Ethan Pratt and Joseph Hagmann},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.28519},
eprint = {2608.28519},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28519},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Beyond sensitivity: mechanism-resolved error budgets for designing quantum sensors
AU - Nima Leclerc
AU - Marco Capelli
AU - Kevin James Rietwyk
AU - Mark Dong
AU - Dmitry Lyakh
AU - Geoffrey Iwata
AU - Brandon Rodenburg
AU - Sean Oliver
AU - Benedikt Kloss
AU - Jin-Sung Kim
AU - Stefan Bogdanovic
AU - Yunheng Chen
AU - Meysam Sharifzadeh Mirshekarloo
AU - Cedric Weber
AU - Marcus Doherty
AU - Ethan Pratt
AU - Joseph Hagmann
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/28
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.28519
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28519
AB - Quantum sensors are specified by a headline sensitivity, yet applications also demand accuracy and reliability. The dominant limiter of one metric is often known, but no method resolves how interacting mechanisms combine into a signed, per-mechanism budget for each metric. We introduce a framework that computes a sensor's sensitivity, accuracy, and robustness from one open-system simulation and attributes each to its limiting mechanism. For a nitrogen-vacancy diamond ensemble the attribution inverts across metrics: dephasing limits sensitivity, the thermal ground-state shift limits accuracy, and optical leakage limits robustness. At identical sensitivity the recovered-field bias spans $8$ to $1500$\,nT, so tuning to sensitivity alone can miss the accuracy target by two orders of magnitude. The same modeling transfers to a cesium optically pumped magnetometer recording a human magnetocardiogram. As a digital twin, it predicts the gain from addressing each limiter, so sensors can be designed to the required metrics.
ER -