An Informational Characterization of Schrödinger's Uncertainty Relations

Heisenberg's uncertainty relations employ commutators of observables to set fundamental limits on quantum measurement. The information concerning incompatibility (non-commutativity) of observables is well included but that concerning correlation is missing. Schrödinger's uncertainty relations remedy this defect by supplementing the correlation in terms of anti-commutators. However, both Heisenberg's uncertainty relations and Schrödinger's uncertainty relations are expressed in terms of variances, which are not good measures of uncertainty in general situations (e.g., when mixed states are involved). By virtue of the Wigner–Yanase skew information, we will establish an uncertainty relation along the spirit of Schrödinger from a statistical inference perspective and propose a conjecture. The result may be interpreted as a quantification of certain aspect of the celebrated Wigner–Araki–Yanase theorem for quantum measurement, which states that observables not commuting with a conserved quantity cannot be measured exactly.     

Uncertainty relation of successive measurements based on Wigner–Yanase skew information

Wigner-Yanase skew information could quantify the quantum uncertainty of the observables that are not commuting with a conserved quantity.We present the uncertainty principle for two successive projective measurements in terms of Wigner-Yanase skew information based on a single quantum system.It could capture the incompatibility of the observables,i.e.the lower bound can be nontrivial for the observables that are incompatible with the state of the quanaim system.Furthermore,the lower bound is also constrained by the quantum Fisher information.In addition,we find the complementarity relation between the uncertainties of the observable which operated on the quantum state and the other observable that performed on the post-measured quantum state and the uncertainties formed by the non-degenerate quantum observables performed on the quantum state,respectively.     

Uncertainty Relations for Coherence

Quantum mechanical uncertainty relations are fundamental consequences of the incompatible nature of noncommuting observables. In terms of the coherence measure based on the Wigner-Yanase skew information, we establish several uncertainty relations for coherence with respect to von Neumann measurements, mutually unbiased bases(MUBs), and general symmetric informationally complete positive operator valued measurements(SIC-POVMs),respectively. Since coherence is intimately connected with quantum uncertainties, the obtained uncertainty relations are of intrinsically quantum nature, in contrast to the conventional uncertainty relations expressed in terms of variance,which are of hybrid nature(mixing both classical and quantum uncertainties). From a dual viewpoint, we also derive some uncertainty relations for coherence of quantum states with respect to a fixed measurement. In particular, it is shown that if the density operators representing the quantum states do not commute, then there is no measurement(reference basis) such that the coherence of these states can be simultaneously small.     

Wigner-Yanase skew information and uncertainty relations

The Wigner-Araki-Yanase theorem puts a limitation on the measurement of observables in the presence of a conserved quantity, and the notion of Wigner-Yanase skew information quantifies the amount of information on the values of observables not commuting with the conserved quantity. We demonstrate that the statistical idea underlying the skew information is the Fisher information in the theory of statistical estimation. A quantum Cramér-Rao inequality and a new uncertainty relation in terms of the skew information are established, which shed considerable new light on the relationships between quantum measurement and statistical inference. The result is applied to estimating the evolution speed of quantum states.     

Averaged Wigner-Yanase-Dyson information as a quantum uncertainty measure

The average of the skew information over the observables was proposed by Luo as a quantum uncertainty measure. In this paper, we investigate the interesting properties of Wigner-Yanase-Dyson (WYD) information, which is a generalization of skew information. Then, by averaging WYD information over the observables we propose a general quantum uncertainty measure of mixed states, and study the properties of the measure. Note that the general quantum uncertainty measure depends on the parameter α and reduces to Luo’s measure when α is equal to 1/2. To get rid of the parameter α, we propose the average of the general measure over the parameter α as a quantum uncertainty measure of mixed states and discuss its properties. The two measures can be considered as the intrinsic properties of mixed state. The construction is reminiscent of the generalized entropies that have shown to be useful in many applications.     

Uncertainty Relations Based on Modified Wigner-Yanase-Dyson Skew Information

Uncertainty relation is a core issue in quantum mechanics and quantum information theory. We introduce modified generalized Wigner-Yanase-Dyson (MGWYD) skew information and modified weighted generalized Wigner-Yanase-Dyson (MWGWYD) skew information, and establish new uncertainty relations in terms of the MGWYD skew information and MWGWYD skew information.

     

Entirety of Quantum Uncertainty and Its Experimental Verification

As a foundation of quantum physics, uncertainty relations describe ultimate limit for the measurement uncertainty of incompatible observables. Traditionally, uncertainty relations are formulated by mathematical bounds for a specific state. Here we present a method for geometrically characterizing uncertainty relations as an entire area of variances of the observables, ranging over all possible input states. We find that for the pair of position and momentum operators, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle points exactly to the attainable area of the variances of position and momentum. Moreover, for finite-dimensional systems, we prove that the corresponding area is necessarily semialgebraic; in other words, this set can be represented via finite polynomial equations and inequalities, or any finite union of such sets. In particular, we give the analytical characterization of the areas of variances of(a) a pair of one-qubit observables and(b) a pair of projective observables for arbitrary dimension,and give the first experimental observation of such areas in a photonic system.     

Improving Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen steering inequalities with state information

We discuss the relationship between entropic Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR)-steering inequalities and their underlying uncertainty relations along with the hypothesis that improved uncertainty relations lead to tighter EPR-steering inequalities. In particular, we discuss how using information about the state of a quantum system affects one?s ability to witness EPR-steering. As an example, we consider the recent improvement to the entropic uncertainty relation between pairs of discrete observables (Berta et al., 2010 [10]). By considering the assumptions that enter into the development of a steering inequality, we derive correct steering inequalities from these improved uncertainty relations and find that they are identical to ones already developed (Schneeloch et al., 2013 [9]). In addition, we consider how one can use state information to improve our ability to witness EPR-steering, and develop a new continuous variable symmetric EPR-steering inequality as a result.     

Probability density functions of quantum mechanical observable uncertainties

We study the uncertainties of quantum mechanical observables, quantified by the standard deviation (square root of variance) in Haar-distributed random pure states. We derive analytically the probability density functions (PDFs) of the uncertainties of arbitrary qubit observables. Based on these PDFs, the uncertainty regions of the observables are characterized by the support of the PDFs. The state-independent uncertainty relations are then transformed into the optimization problems over uncertainty regions, which opens a new vista for studying state-independent uncertainty relations. Our results may be generalized to multiple observable cases in higher dimensional spaces.     

The Generalized Uncertainty Principle

The uncertainty principle lies at the heart of quantum physics, and is widely thought of as a fundamental limit of the measurement precision of incompatible observables. Here it is shown that the traditional uncertainty relation in fact belongs to the leading order approximation of a generalized uncertainty relation. That is, the leading order linear dependence of observables gives the Heisenberg type of uncertainty relations, while higher order nonlinear dependence may reveal more different and interesting correlation properties. Applications of the generalized uncertainty relation and the high order nonlinear dependence between observables in quantum information science are also discussed.     

Uncertainty relations expressed by means of information energies

In this paper, we consider an alternative form of the uncertainty relation for quantum observables of discrete spectrum which makes use of so-called “information energy” as the measure of uncertainty. Then we apply this form of uncertainty relation to the particular case of two mutually orthogonal components of the spin-1/2 operator. We show that the use of this non-standard uncertainty measure simplifies the expression for spreads of observables and for the construction of the corresponding uncertainty relation.     

Note on the Wigner-Yanase-Dyson Skew Information

In this note, releasing the restriction on operators which are observables (self-adjoint), a generalization of the Wigner-Yanase-Dyson skew information is given. We study some properties of the generalization of the Wigner-Yanase-Dyson skew information and related quantities from the operator theory point of view. In particular, an elementary proof of the convexity with the Wigner-Yanase-Dyson skew information is obtained.     

Generalizations of Heisenberg uncertainty relation

A survey on the generalizations of Heisenberg uncertainty relation and a general scheme for their entangled extensions to several states and observables is presented. The scheme is illustrated on the examples of one and two states and canonical quantum observables, and spin and quasi-spin components. Several new uncertainty relations are displayed. Received 10 October 2001 / Received in final form 6 March 2002 Published online 2 October 2002 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: dtrif@inrne.bas.bg     

Polarization squeezing and new states of light in quantum optics

The concept of squeezing is discussed for multimode quantum light beams with the consideration of polarization using the polarization gauge SU (2) invariance of free electromagnetic fields. We separate the polarization degrees of freedom from other ones, and consider uncertainty relations characterizing polarization observables. As a consequence, we obtain a new classification of polarization states of light within quantum optics.     

The remaining uncertainty in quantum measurement of noncommuting discrete observables

The quantum mechanical measuring process is analyzed from the standpoint of information theory. We determined the remaining uncertainty in the successive measurements of two discrete noncommuting observables and found its lower bound. Using this lower bound, a new simple form of uncertainty relation for two discrete noncommuting observables is proposed.     

Uncertainty relations for general phase spaces

We describe a setup for obtaining uncertainty relations for arbitrary pairs of observables related by a Fourier transform. The physical examples discussed here are the standard position and momentum, number and angle, finite qudit systems, and strings of qubits for quantum information applications. The uncertainty relations allow for an arbitrary choice of metric for the outcome distance, and the choice of an exponent distinguishing, e.g., absolute and root mean square deviations. The emphasis of this article is on developing a unified treatment, in which one observable takes on values in an arbitrary locally compact Abelian group and the other in the dual group. In all cases, the phase space symmetry implies the equality of measurement and preparation uncertainty bounds. There is also a straightforward method for determining the optimal bounds.     

Uncertainty inequalities as entanglement criteria for negative partial-transpose States

In this Letter, we show that the fulfillment of uncertainty relations is a sufficient criterion for a quantum-mechanically permissible state. We specifically construct two pseudospin observables for an arbitrary nonpositive Hermitian matrix whose uncertainty relation is violated. This method enables us to systematically derive separability conditions for all negative partial-transpose states in experimentally accessible forms. In particular, generalized entanglement criteria are derived from the Schr?dinger-Robertson inequalities for bipartite continuous-variable states.     

Heisenberg Uncertainty Relations as Statistical Invariants

For a simple set of observables we can express, in terms of transition probabilities alone, the Heisenberg uncertainty relations, so that they are proven to be not only necessary, but sufficient too, in order for the given observables to admit a quantum model. Furthermore distinguished characterizations of strictly complex and real quantum models, with some ancillary results, are presented and discussed.     

The uncertainty relation expressed by means of a new entropic function

In this article we use a new entropic function, derived from an f-divergence between two probability distributions, for the construction of an alternative entropic uncertainty relation. After a brief review of some existing f-divergences, a new f-divergence and the corresponding entropic function, derived from it, is introduced and its useful characteristics are presented. This entropic function is then applied to construct an alternative uncertainty relation of two non-commuting observables in quantum physics. An explicit expression for such an uncertainty relation is found for the case of two observables which are the x- and z-components of the angular momentum of the spin-1/2 system.      

Geometric derivation of quantum uncertainty

Quantum observables can be identified with vector fields on the sphere of normalized states. Consequently, the uncertainty relations for quantum observables become geometric statements. In the Letter the familiar uncertainty relation follows from the following stronger statement: Of all parallelograms with given sides the rectangle has the largest area.