The uncertainty principle is one of the fundamental features of quantum mechanics and plays an essential role in quantum information theory. We study uncertainty relations based on variance for arbitrary finite $N$ quantum observables. We establish a series of parameterized uncertainty relations in terms of the parameterized norm inequalities, which improve the exiting variance-based uncertainty relations. The lower bounds of our uncertainty inequalities are non-zero unless the measured state is a common eigenvector of all the observables. Detailed examples are provided to illustrate the tightness of our uncertainty relations.
The goal of this paper is to calculate exactly the average of uncertainty-product of two bounded observables and to establish its typicality over the whole set of finite dimensional quantum pure states. Here we use the uniform ensembles of pure and isospectral states as well as the states distributed uniformly according to the measure induced by the Hilbert-Schmidt norm. Firstly, we investigate the average uncertainty of an observable over isospectral density matrices. By letting the isospectral density matrices be of rank-one, we get the average uncertainty of an observable restricted to pure…
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 supports 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 res…
The optimal state-independent lower bounds for the sum of variances or deviations of observables are of significance for the growing number of experiments that reach the uncertainty limited regime. We present a framework for computing the tight uncertainty relations of variance or deviation via determining the uncertainty regions, which are formed by the tuples of two or more of quantum observables in random quantum states induced from the uniform Haar measure on the purified states. From the analytical formulae of these uncertainty regions, we present state-independent uncertainty inequalitie…
Optimal Uncertainty Relations for a Single Observable
Graduate School of Engineering and Science, Shibaura Institute of Technology（埼玉工业大学研究生院工程科学）；Graduate School of Information Sciences, Tohoku University（东北大学大学院信息科学研究院）
The uncertainty principle imposes a fundamental limit on predicting the measurement outcomes of incompatible observables even if complete classical information of the system state is known. The situation is different if one can build a quantum memory entangled with the system. Zero uncertainty states (in contrast with minimum uncertainty states) are peculiar quantum states that can eliminate uncertainties of incompatible von Neumann observables once assisted by suitable measurements on the memory. Here we determine all zero uncertainty states of any given set of nondegenerate observables and d…
The entropic uncertainty principle as outlined by Maassen and Uffink for a pair of non-degenerate observables in a finite level qusystem is generalized here to the case of a pair of arbitrary quantum measurements. In particular, our result includes not only the case of projectivmeasurements (or equivalently, observables) exhibiting degeneracy but also an uncertainty principle for a single measurement.
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.
Measurement uncertainty relations are quantitative bounds on the errors in an approximate joint measurement of two observables. They can be seen as a generalization of the error/disturbance tradeoff first discussed heuristically by Heisenberg. Here we prove such relations for the case of two canonically conjugate observables like position and momentum, and establish a close connection with the more familiar preparation uncertainty relations constraining the sharpness of the distributions of the two observables in the same state. Both sets of relations are generalized to means of order $α$ rath…
Uncertainty relations describe the lower bound of product of standard deviations of observables. By revealing a connection between standard deviations of quantum observables and numerical radius of operators, we establish a universal uncertainty relation for any $k$ observables, of which the formulation depends on the even or odd quality of $k$. This universal uncertainty relation is tight at least for the cases $k=2n$ and $k=3$. For two observables, the uncertainty relation is exactly a simpler reformulation of Schrödinger's uncertainty principle.
Uncertainty relations are old, yet potentially rewarding to explore. By introducing a quantity called the uncertainty matrix, we provide a link between purity and observable incompatibility, and derive several stronger uncertainty relations in both forward and reverse directions for arbitrary quantum states, i.e., mixed as well as pure, and arbitrary incompatible quantum observables, none of which suffer from the problem of triviality. Besides the tightness, the interpretations of terms in these uncertainty relations may be of independent inter- est. We provide the possible generalization of s…
We introduce a new information-theoretic formulation of quantum measurement uncertainty relations, based on the notion of relative entropy between measurement probabilities. In the case of a finite-dimensional system and for any approximate joint measurement of two target discrete observables, we define the entropic divergence as the maximal total loss of information occurring in the approximation at hand. For fixed target observables, we study the joint measurements minimizing the entropic divergence, and we prove the general properties of its minimum value. Such a minimum is our uncertainty …
Measurement uncertainty relations are lower bounds on the errors of any approximate joint measurement of two or more quantum observables. The aim of this paper is to provide methods to compute optimal bounds of this type. The basic method is semidefinite programming, which we apply to arbitrary finite collections of projective observables on a finite dimensional Hilbert space. The quantification of errors is based on an arbitrary cost function, which assigns a penalty to getting result $x$ rather than y, for any pair (x,y). This induces a notion of optimal transport cost for a pair of probabil…
We investigate the product form uncertainty relations of variances for $n\,(n\geq 3)$ quantum observables. In particular, tight uncertainty relations satisfied by three observables has been derived, which is shown to be better than the ones derived from the strengthened Heisenberg and the generalized Schrödinger uncertainty relations, and some existing uncertainty relation for three spin-half operators. Uncertainty relation of arbitrary number of observables is also derived. As an example, the uncertainty relation satisfied by the eight Gell-Mann matrices is presented.
For angular observables pairs (angular momentum-angle and number-phase) the adequate reference element of normality is not the Robertson-Schrödinger uncertainty relation but a Schwarz formula regarding the quantum fluctuations. Beyond such a fact the traditional interpretation of the uncertainty relations appears as an unjustified doctrine.
We study the sum uncertainty relations based on variance and skew information for arbitrary finite N quantum mechanical observables. We derive new uncertainty inequalities which improve the exiting results about the related uncertainty relations. Detailed examples are provided to illustrate the advantages of our uncertainty inequalities.
We formulate uncertainty relations for arbitrary $N$ observables. Two uncertainty inequalities are presented in terms of the sum of variances and standard deviations, respectively. The lower bounds of the corresponding sum uncertainty relations are explicitly derived. These bounds are shown to be tighter than the ones such as derived from the uncertainty inequality for two observables [Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 260401 (2014)]. Detailed examples are presented to compare among our results with some existing ones.
Uncertainty relation lies at the heart of quantum mechanics, characterizing the incompatibility of non-commuting observables in the preparation of quantum states. An important question is how to improve the lower bound of uncertainty relation. Here we present a variance-based sum uncertainty relation for $N$ incompatible observables stronger than the simple generalization of the uncertainty relation for two observables derived by Maccone and Pati [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf113}, 260401 (2014)]. Further comparisons of our uncertainty relation with other related ones for spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ and spin-$…
We derive new Heisenberg-type uncertainty relations for both joint measurability and the error-disturbance tradeoff for arbitrary observables of finite-dimensional systems. The relations are formulated in terms of a directly operational quantity, namely the probability of distinguishing the actual operation of a device from its hypothetical ideal, by any possible testing procedure whatsoever. Moreover, they may be directly applied in information processing settings, for example to infer that devices which can faithfully transmit information regarding one observable do not leak any information …
The local uncertainty relation (LUR) criteria for quantum entanglement, which is dependent on chosen observables, is developed recent. In the paper, applying the uncertainty principle, an entanglement criteria for multipartite Gaussian states is given, which is implemented by a minimum optimization computer program and independent on observalbes.
The uncertainty relation is a distinguishing feature of quantum theory, characterizing the incompatibility of noncommuting observables in the preparation of quantum states. Recently, many uncertainty relations were proposed with improved lower bounds and were deemed capable of incorporating multiple observables. Here we report an experimental verification of seven uncertainty relations of this type with single-photon measurements. The results, while confirming these uncertainty relations, show as well the relative stringency of various uncertainty lower bounds.
We formulate uncertainty relations for arbitrary finite number of incompatible observables. Based on the sum of variances of the observables, both Heisenberg-type and Schrödinger-type uncertainty relations are provided. These new lower bounds are stronger in most of the cases than the ones derived from some existing inequalities. Detailed examples are presented.
We define an uncertainty observable, acting on several replicas of a continuous-variable bosonic state, whose trivial uncertainty lower bound induces nontrivial phase-space uncertainty relations for a single copy of the state. By exploiting the Schwinger representation of angular momenta in terms of bosonic operators, we construct such an observable that is invariant under symplectic transformations (rotation and squeezing in phase space). We first design a two-copy uncertainty observable, which is a discrete-spectrum operator vanishing with certainty if and only if it is applied on (two copie…
We show that different entropic measures of fluctuations lead to contradictory uncertainty relations for two complementary observables. We apply Tsallis and Rényi entropies to the joint distribution emerging from a noisy simultaneous measurement of both observables as well as to the product of their individual statistics, either intrinsic or of operational origin.
Entropic uncertainty relations, based on sums of entropies of probability distributions arising from different measurements on a given pure state, can be seen as a generalization of the Heisenberg uncertainty relation that is in many cases a more useful way to quantify incompatibility between observables. Of particular interest are relationships between `mutually unbiased' observables, which are maximally incompatible. Lower bounds on the sum of entropies for sets of two such observables, and for complete sets of observables within a space of given dimension, have been found. This paper explor…
Conventional quantum uncertainty relations (URs) contain dispersions of two observables. Generalized URs are known which contain three or more dispersions. They are derived here starting with suitable generalized Cauchy inequalities. It is shown what new information the generalized URs provide. Similar interpretation is given to generalized Cauchy inequalities.
Uncertainty relations provide fundamental limits on what can be said about the properties of quantum systems. For a quantum particle, the commutation relation of position and momentum observables entails Heisenberg's uncertainty relation. A third observable is presented which satisfies canonical commutation relations with both position and momentum. The resulting triple of pairwise canonical observables gives rise to a Heisenberg-type uncertainty relation for the product of three standard deviations. We derive the smallest possible value of this bound and determine the specific squeezed state …
Uncertainty principle is the basis of quantum mechanics. It reflects the basic law of the movement of microscopic particles. Wigner-Yanase skew information, as a measure of quantum uncertainties, is used to characterize the intrinsic features of the state and the observable. In this paper, we mainly investigate the sum uncertainty relations for both quantum mechanical observables and quantum channels based on skew information. We establish a new uncertainty relation in terms of Wigner-Yanase skew information for $n$ observables, which is saturated (thus it holds as equality) for two incompatib…
We construct a multi-observable uncertainty equality as well as an inequality based on the sum of standard deviations in the qubit system. The obtained equality indicates that the uncertainty relation can be expressed more accurately, and also can be used to detect the mixedness of the system. Meanwhile, the new uncertainty inequality can provide a tighter lower bound, and the tightness can be maintained at a high level even in an open system. Furthermore, the deficiency of the uncertainty relation, that the lower bound of the product form uncertainty relations can be null even for two incompa…
A prominent formulation of the uncertainty principle identifies the fundamental quantum feature that no particle may be prepared with certain outcomes for both position and momentum measurements. Often the statistical uncertainties are thereby measured in terms of entropies providing a clear operational interpretation in information theory and cryptography. Recently, entropic uncertainty relations have been used to show that the uncertainty can be reduced in the presence of entanglement and to prove security of quantum cryptographic tasks. However, much of this recent progress has been focused…
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.
Determining the measurement uncertainty region is a difficult problem for generic sets of observables. For this reason the literature on exact measurement uncertainty regions is focused on symmetric sets of observables, where the symmetries are used to simplify the calculation. We provide a framework to systematically exploit available symmetries, formulated in terms of covariance, to simplify problems of measurement uncertainty. Our key result is that for a wide range figures of merit the optimal compatible approximations of covariant target observables are themselves covariant. This substant…
We have made the first experimental demonstration of the simultaneous minimum uncertainty product between two complementary observables for a two-state system (a qubit). A partially entangled two-photon state was used to perform such measurements. Each of the photons carries (partial) information of the initial state thus leaving a room for measurements of two complementary observables on every member in an ensemble.
Recently, Maccone and Pati \cite{pa.1} derived new uncertainty relations which they claim to be stronger than Heisenberg-Robertson or Schrodinger uncertainty relations. Here we comment that their work is a special case of a more general uncertainty relation and we reexamine some of their conclusions.
A new lower boundary for the product of variances of two observables is obtained in the case, when these observables are entangled with the third one. This boundary can be higher than the Robertson--Schrödinger one. The special case of the two-dimensional pure Gaussian state is considered as an example.
The uncertainty relation, as one of the fundamental principles of quantum physics, captures the incompatibility of noncommuting observables in the preparation of quantum states. In this work, we derive two strong and universal uncertainty relations for $N(N\ge2)$ observables with discrete and bounded spectra, one in multiplicative form and the other in additive form. To verify their validity, for illustration, we implement in the spin-1/2 system an experiment with single-photon measurement. The experimental results exhibit the validity and robustness of these uncertainty relations, and indicat…
Universally valid uncertainty relations are proven in a model independent formulation for inherent and unavoidable extra noises in arbitrary joint measurements on single systems, from which Heisenber's original uncertainty relation is proven valid for any joint measurements with statistically independent noises.
The Heisenberg-Robertson uncertainty relation quantitatively expresses the impossibility of jointly sharp preparation of incompatible observables. However it does not capture the concept of incompatible observables because it can be trivial even for two incompatible observables. We experimentally demonstrate the new stronger uncertainty relations proposed by Maccone and Pati [Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 260401 (2014)] relating on that sum of variances are valid in a state-dependent manner and the lower bound is guaranteed to be nontrivial for two observables being incompatible on the state of the sy…
Entropic uncertainty relations express the quantum mechanical uncertainty principle by quantifying uncertainty in terms of entropy. Central questions include the derivation of lower bounds on the total uncertainty for given observables, the characterization of observables that allow strong uncertainty relations, and the construction of such relations for the case of several observables. We demonstrate how the stabilizer formalism can be applied to these questions. We show that the Maassen-Uffink entropic uncertainty relation is tight for the measurement in any pair of stabilizer bases. We comp…
A tight information-theoretic measurement uncertainty relation is experimentally tested with neutron spin-1/2 qubits. The noise associated to the measurement of an observable is defined via conditional Shannon entropies and a tradeoff relation between the noises for two arbitrary spin observables is demonstrated. The optimal bound of this tradeoff is experimentally obtained for various non-commuting spin observables. For some of these observables this lower bound can be reached with projective measurements, but we observe that, in other cases, the tradeoff is only saturated by general quantum …
We present a family of entropic uncertainty relations for pointer-based simultaneous measurements of conjugate observables. The lower bounds of these relations explicitly incorporate the influence of the measurement apparatus. We achieve this by using a mathematical theorem which states that the information entropy of convoluted probability distributions is bound from below. As a consequence of these results we can straightforwardly show that appropriately squeezed states are minimal entropy states for simultaneous measurements.
New sum and product uncertainty relations, containing variances of three or four observables, but not containing explicitly their covariances, are derived. One of consequences is the new inequality, giving a nonzero lower bound for the product of two variances in the case of zero mean value of the commutator between the related operators. Moreover, explicit examples show that in some cases this new bound can be better than the known Robertson--Schrödinger one.
Uncertainty principle is one of the cornerstones of quantum theory. In the literature, there are two types of uncertainty relations, the operator form concerning the variances of physical observables and the entropy form related to entropic quantities. Both these forms are inequalities involving pairwise observables, and are found to be nontrivial to incorporate multiple observables. In this work we introduce a new form of uncertainty relation which may give out complete trade-off relations for variances of observables in pure and mixed quantum systems. Unlike the prevailing uncertainty relati…
Reality of quantum observables, a feature of long-standing interest within foundations of quantum mechanics, has recently been quantified and deeply studied by means of entropic measures [Phys. Rev. A 97, 022107 (2018)]. However, there is no state-independent "reality trade-off" between noncommuting observables, as in certain systems all observables are real [Europhys. Lett. 112, 40005 (2015)]. We show that the entropic uncertainty relation in the presence of quantum memory [Nature Phys. 6, 659 (2010)] perfectly supplements the discussed notion of reality, rendering trade-offs between reality …
One of the most important and useful entropic uncertainty relations concerns a $d$ dimensional system and two mutually unbiased measurements. In such a setting, the sum of two information entropies is lower bounded by $\ln d$. It has recently been shown that projective measurements subject to operational mutual unbiasedness can also be constructed in a continuous domain, with the help of periodic coarse graining. Here we consider the whole family of Rényi entropies applied to these discretized observables and prove that such a scheme does also admit the uncertainty relation mentioned above.
Uncertainty relations lie at the very core of quantum mechanics, and form the cornerstone of essentially all quantum cryptographic applications. In particular, they play an important role in cryptographic protocols in the bounded-quantum-storage model, where proving the security of all existing protocols ultimately reduces to bounding such relations. Yet, very little is known about such uncertainty relations for more than two measurements. Here, we prove optimal entropic uncertainty relations for anti-commuting binary observables for the Shannon entropy, and nearly optimal relations for the co…
A scheme for construction of uncertainty relations (UR) for n observables and m states is presented. Several lowest order UR are displayed and briefly discussed. For two states |ψ> and |ϕ> and canonical observables the (entangled) extension of Heisenberg UR reads [Δp(ψ)]^2[Δq(ϕ)]^2 + [Δp(ϕ)]^2[Δq(ψ)]^2 \geq 1/2. Some possible applications of the new inequalities are noted.
Quantum uncertainty relations have deep-rooted significance on the formalism of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg's uncertainty relations attracted a renewed interest for its applications in quantum information science. Robertson derived a general form of Heisenberg's uncertainty relations for a pair of arbitrary observables represented by Hermitian operators. In the present work, we discover a temporal version of the Heisenberg-Robertson uncertainty relations for the measurement of two observables at two different times, where the dynamical uncertainties crucially depend on the time evolution of …
In this work we establish rigorously a measurement uncertainty relation (MUR) for three unbiased qubit observables, which was previously shown to hold true under some presumptions. The triplet MUR states that the uncertainty, which is quantified by the total statistic distance between the target observables and the jointly implemented observables, is lower bounded by an incompatibility measure that reflects the joint measurement conditions. We derive a necessary and sufficient condition for the triplet MUR to be saturated and the corresponding optimal measurement. To facilitate experimental te…
Heisenberg's measurement uncertainty relations (MUR) of two quantum observables are essential for contemporary researches in quantum foundations and quantum information science. Going beyond, here we report the first experimental test of MURs for three quantum observables. Following the proposal of Bush, Lahti, and Werner [Phys. Rev. A 89, 012129 (2014)], we first establish rigorously MURs for triplets of unbiased qubit observables as combined approximation errors lower-bounded by an incompatibility measure. We then develop a convex programming protocol to numerically find the exact value of t…
Uncertainties in successive measurements of general canonically conjugate variables are examined. Such operators are approached within a limiting procedure of the Pegg-Barnett type. Dealing with unbounded observables, we should take into account a finiteness of detector resolution. An appropriate reformulation of two scenarios of successive measurements is proposed and motivated. Uncertainties are characterized by means of generalized entropies of both the Rényi and Tsallis types. The Rényi and Tsallis formulations of uncertainty relations are obtained for both the scenarios of successive meas…
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…
