Precise thermometry for quantum systems is important to the development of new technology, and understanding the ultimate limits to precision presents a fundamental challenge. It is well known that optimal thermometry requires projective measurements of the total energy of the sample. However, this is infeasible in even moderately-sized systems, where realistic energy measurements will necessarily involve some coarse graining. Here, we explore the precision limits for temperature estimation when only coarse-grained measurements are available. Utilizing tools from signal processing, we derive the structure of optimal coarse-grained measurements and find that good temperature estimates can generally be attained even with a small number of outcomes. We apply our results to many-body systems and nonequilibrium thermometry. For the former, we focus on interacting spin lattices, both at and away from criticality, and find that the Fisher-information scaling with system size is unchanged after coarse-graining. For the latter, we consider a probe of given dimension interacting with the sample, followed by a measurement of the probe. We derive an upper bound on arbitrary, nonequilibrium strategies for such probe-based thermometry and illustrate it for thermometry on a Bose-Einstein condensate using an atomic quantum-dot probe.
We consider an open quantum system for which only a subset of all possible transitions are accessible, while the remaining ones are hidden from direct observation. Using a modification of the notion of quantum jump trajectories we introduce the coarse-grained hidden entropy, which quantifies the entropy production in the hidden subsystem conditioned on our observations of the visible part. The entropy production consisting of the sum of visible and coarse-grained hidden entropy is shown to satisfy an integral fluctuations theorem. Depending on the nature of the continuously occurring measureme…
We derive two quantum uncertainty relations for position and momentum coarse-grained measurements. Building on previous results, we first improve the lower bound for uncertainty relations using the Renyi entropy, particularly in the case of coarse-grained measurements. We then sharpen a Heisenberg-like uncertainty relation derived previously in [Europhys. Lett. 97, 38003, (2012)] that uses variances and reduces to the usual one in the case of infinite precision measurements. Our sharpened uncertainty relation is meaningful for any amount of coarse graining. That is, there is always a non-trivi…
We ask which is the best strategy to reveal uncertainty relations between comple- mentary observables of a continuous variable system for coarse-grained measurements. This leads to the derivation of new uncertainty relations for coarse-grained measurements that are always valid, even for detectors with low precision. These relations should be particularly relevant in experimental demonstrations of squeezing in quantum optics, quantum state reconstruction, and the development of trustworthy entanglement criteria.
Magnus expansion is used to identify effective Hamiltonians describing the coarse-grained dynamics of more complex problems. Here, we apply this method to a two-level system driven by an and AC field. We derive Stark and Bloch-Siegert shifs of both diagonal and off-diagonal entries of the Hamiltonian as a result of coarse-graining only.
We improve the entropic uncertainty relations for position and momentum coarse-grained measurements. We derive the continuous, coarse-grained counterparts of the discrete uncertainty relations based on the concept of majorization. The obtained entropic inequalities involve two Rényi entropies of the same order, and thus go beyond the standard scenario with conjugated parameters. In a special case describing the sum of two Shannon entropies the majorization-based bounds significantly outperform the currently known results in the regime of larger coarse graining, and might thus be useful for ent…
Constrained quantum dynamics is used to propose a nonlinear dynamical equation for pure states of a generalized coarse-grained system. The relevant constraint is given either by the generalized purity or by the generalized invariant fluctuation, and the coarse-grained pure states correspond to the generalized coherent i.e. generalized nonentangled states. Open system model of the coarse-graining is discussed. It is shown that in this model and in the weak coupling limit the constrained dynamical equations coincide with an equation for pointer states, based on Hilbert-Schmidt distance, that was…
We investigate how classical predictability of the coarse-grained evolution of the quantum baker's map depends on the character of the coarse-graining. Our analysis extends earlier work by Brun and Hartle [Phys. Rev. D 60, 123503 (1999)] to the case of a chaotic map. To quantify predictability, we compare the rate of entropy increase for a family of coarse-grainings in the decoherent histories formalism. We find that the rate of entropy increase is dominated by the number of scales characterising the coarse-graining.
Constrained Hamiltonian dynamics of a quantum system of nonlinear oscillators is used to provide the mathematical formulation of a coarse-grained description of the quantum system. It is seen that the evolution of the coarse-grained system preserves constant and minimal quantum fluctuations of the fundamental observables. This leads to the emergence of the corresponding classical system on a sufficiently large scale.
Information-theoretical quantities such as statistical distinguishability typically result from optimisations over all conceivable observables. Physical theories, however, are not generally considered valid for all mathematically allowed measurements. For instance, quantum field theories are not meant to be correct or even consistent at arbitrarily small lengthscales. A general way of limiting such an optimisation to certain observables is to first coarse-grain the states by a quantum channel. We show how to calculate contractive quantum information metrics on coarse-grained equilibrium states…
We derive reliable entanglement witnesses for coarse--grained measurements on continuous variable systems. These witnesses never return a "false positive" for identification of entanglement, under any degree of coarse graining. We show that, even in the case of Gaussian states, entanglement witnesses based on the Shannon entropy can outperform those based on variances. We apply our results to experimental identification of spatial entanglement of photon pairs.
In the present work we explore a suitable coarse graining channel as a tool to describe the effective entanglement spreading in a coarse-grained spin-chain with different degrees of resolution. Comparing it with the experimental realizations performed with ultracold atoms, our results suggest that even if we are not able to fully resolve the system, entanglement can still be detected for some coarse graining levels. Furthermore, we show that it is possible to have some information about the "microscopic" entanglement, even if we have access only to the system's coarse-grained description. We s…
A novel result concerning Raman coupling schemes in the context of trapped ions is obtained. By means of an operator perturbative approach, it is shown that the complete time evolution of these systems (in the interaction picture) can be expressed, with a high degree of accuracy, as the product of two unitary evolutions. The first one describes the time evolution related to an effective coarse grained dynamics. The second is a suitable correction restoring the {\em fine} dynamics suppressed by the coarse graining performed to adiabatically eliminate the nonresonantly coupled atomic level.
We compute the spectrum of the classical and quantum mechanical coarse-grained propagators for a piecewise linear discontinuous map. We analyze the quantum - classical correspondence and the evolution of the spectrum with increasing resolution. Our results are compared to the ones obtained for a mixed system.
Mutual unbiasedness of the eigenstates of phase-space operators-such as position and momentum, or their standard coarse grained versions-exists only in the limiting case of infinite squeezing. In [Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 040403 (2018)] it was shown that mutual unbiasedness can be recovered for periodic coarse grainings of these two operators. Here we investigate mutual unbiasedness of coarse-grained measurements for more than two phase-space variables. We show that mutual unbiasedness can be recovered between periodic coarse graining of any two non-parallel phase-space operators. We illustrate t…
Uncertainty relations involving complementary observables are one of the cornerstones of quantum mechanics. Aside from their fundamental significance, they play an important role in practical applications, such as detection of quantum correlations and security requirements in quantum cryptography. In continuous variable systems, the spectra of the relevant observables form a continnuum and this necessitates the coarse graining of measurements. However, these coarse-grained observables do not necessarily obey the same uncertainty relations as the original ones, a fact that can lead to false res…
Non-commutative quantum physics at the atom scale can arise from coarse graining of a classical statistical ensemble at the Planck scale. Position and momentum of an isolated particle are classical observables which remain computable in terms of the coarse grained information. However, the commuting classical product of position and momentum observables is no longer defined in the coarse grained system, which is therefore described by incomplete statistics. The microphysical classical statistical ensemble at the Planck scale admits an alternative non-commuting product structure for position an…
The negativity of a given state's Wigner function has been proposed as a measure of quantumness of that state in a unipartite system. This otherwise physically intuitive and useful phase-space measure however does not yield the right correspondence principle limit, and also turns out to yield infinite values for the infinite square well. We show that both these issues can be sensibly resolved using coarse-graining of the Wigner function.
Discretization of phase space usually nullifies chaos in dynamical systems. We show that if randomness is associated with discretization dynamical chaos may survive and be indistinguishable from that of the original chaotic system, when an entropic, coarse-grained analysis is performed. Relevance of this phenomenon to the problem of quantum chaos is discussed.
Recently a complete set of entropic conditions has been derived for the interconversion structure of states under quantum operations that respect a specified symmetry action, however the core structure of these conditions is still only partially understood. Here we develop a coarse-grained description with the aim of shedding light on both the structure and the complexity of this general problem. Specifically, we consider the degree to which one can associate a basic `shape' property to a quantum state or channel that captures coarse-grained data either for state interconversion or for the use…
The notion of mutual unbiasedness for coarse-grained measurements of quantum continuous variable systems is considered. It is shown that while the procedure of "standard" coarse graining breaks the mutual unbiasedness between conjugate variables, this desired feature can be theoretically established and experimentally observed in periodic coarse graining. We illustrate our results in an optics experiment implementing Fraunhofer diffraction through a periodic diffraction grating, finding excellent agreement with the derived theory. Our results are an important step in developing a formal connec…
We show that failure of local realism can be revealed to observers for whom only extremely coarse-grained measurements are available. In our instances, Bell's inequality is violated even up to the maximum limit while both the local measurements and the initial local states under scrutiny approach the classical limit. Furthermore, we can observe failure of local realism when an inequality enforced by non-local realistic theories is satisfied. This suggests that locality alone may be violated while realism cannot be excluded for specific observables and states. Small-scale experimental demonstra…
Quantum particles can be obtained from a classical probability distribution in phase space by a suitable coarse graining, whereby simultaneous classical information about position and momentum can be lost. For a suitable time evolution of the classical probabilities and choice of observables all features of a quantum particle in a potential follow from classical statistics. This includes interference, tunneling and the uncertainty relation.
We investigate the entanglement of a quantum field in the expanding universe. By introducing a bipartite system using a coarse-grained scalar field, we apply the separability criterion based on the partial transpose operation and numerically calculate the bipartite entanglement between separate spatial regions. We find that the initial entangled state becomes separable or dis-entangled after the spatial separation of two points exceed the Hubble horizon. This provides the necessary condition for the appearance of classicality of the quantum fluctuation. We also investigate the condition of cla…
Classification of entanglement in multipartite quantum systems is an open problem solved so far only for bipartite systems and for systems composed of three and four qubits. We propose here a coarse-grained classification of entanglement in systems consisting of $N$ subsystems with an arbitrary number of internal levels each, based on properties of orthogonal arrays with $N$ columns. In particular, we investigate in detail a subset of highly entangled pure states which contains all states defining maximum distance separable codes. To illustrate the methods presented, we analyze systems of four…
We propose the coarse-grained spectral projection method (CGSP), a deep learning-assisted approach for tackling quantum unitary dynamic problems with an emphasis on quench dynamics. We show CGSP can extract spectral components of many-body quantum states systematically with sophisticated neural network quantum ansatz. CGSP exploits fully the linear unitary nature of the quantum dynamics, and is potentially superior to other quantum Monte Carlo methods for ergodic dynamics. Preliminary numerical results on 1D XXZ models with periodic boundary condition are carried out to demonstrate the practic…
We propose a coarse-grained picture to control ``complex'' quantum dynamics, i.e., multi-level-multi-level transition with a random interaction. Assuming that optimally controlled dynamics can be described as a Rabi-like oscillation between an initial and final state, we derive an analytic optimal field as a solution to optimal control theory. For random matrix systems, we numerically confirm that the analytic optimal field steers an initial state to a target state which both contains many eigenstates.
We propose a coarse-grained picture to analyze control problems for quantum chaos systems. Using optimal control theory, we first show that almost perfect control is achieved for random matrix systems and a quantum kicked rotor. Second, under the assumption that the controlled dynamics is well described by a Rabi-type oscillaion between unperturbed states, we derive an analytic expression for the optimal field. Finally we numerically confirm that the analytic field can steer an initial state to a target state in random matrix systems.
The main goal of this paper is to set up the coarse-grained formulation of a fractional Schrödinger equation that incorporates a higher (spatial) derivative term which accounts for relativistic effects at a lowest order. The corresponding continuity equation is worked out and we also identify the contribution of the relativistic correction the quantum potential in the coarse-grained treatment. As a consequence, in the classical regime, we derive the sort of fractional Newtonian law with the quantum potential included and the fractional conterparts of the De Broglies's energy and momentum relat…
Coarse-grained spin density functional theory (SDFT) is a version of SDFT which works with number/spin densities specified to a limited resolution --- averages over cells of a regular spatial partition --- and external potentials constant on the cells. This coarse-grained setting facilitates a rigorous investigation of the mathematical foundations which goes well beyond what is currently possible in the conventional formualation. Problems of existence, uniqueness and regularity of representing potentials in the coarse-grained SDFT setting are here studied using techniques of (Robinsonian) nons…
