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arXiv:1205.5132

Invariant theoretic approach to uncertainty relations for quantum systems

J. Solomon Ivan, Krishna Kumar Sabapathy, Narasimhaiengar Mukunda, R. Simon

Published May 23, 2012• 4 citations
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Abstract

We present a general framework and procedure to derive uncertainty relations for observables of quantum systems in a covariant manner. All such relations are consequences of the positive semidefiniteness of the density matrix of a general quantum state. Particular emphasis is given to the action of unitary symmetry operations of the system on the chosen observables, and the covariance of the uncertainty relations under these operations. The general method is applied to the case of an $n$-mode system to recover the $Sp(2n,\,R)$-covariant multi mode generalization of the single mode Schrödinger-Robertson Uncertainty Principle; and to the set of all polynomials in canonical variables for a single mode system. In the latter situation, the case of the fourth order moments is analyzed in detail, exploiting covariance under the homogeneous Lorentz group $SO(2,\,1)$ of which the symplectic group $Sp(2,\,R)$ is the double cover.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1205.5132

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We present a general framework and procedure to derive uncertainty relations for observables of quantum systems in a covariant manner. All such relations are consequences of the positive semidefiniteness of the density matrix of a general quantum state. Particular emphasis is given to the action of unitary symmetry operations of the system on the chosen observables, and the covariance of the uncertainty relations under these operations. The general method is applied to the case of an nnn-mode system to recover the Sp(2n, R)Sp(2n,\,R)Sp(2n,R)-covariant multi mode generalization of the single mode Schrödinger-Robertson Uncertainty Principle; and to the set of all polynomials in canonical variables for a single mode system. In the latter situation, the case of the fourth order moments is analyzed in detail, exploiting covariance under the homogeneous Lorentz group SO(2, 1)SO(2,\,1)SO(2,1) of which the symplectic group Sp(2, R)Sp(2,\,R)Sp(2,R) is the double cover.
The set of covariance matrices of a continuous-variable quantum system with a finite number of degrees of freedom is a strict subset of the set of real positive-definite matrices (PDMs) due to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. This has the implication that, in general, not every orthogonal transform of a quantum covariance matrix (CM) produces a PDM that obeys the uncertainty principle. A natural question thus arises, to find the set of quantum covariance matrices consistent with a given eigenspectrum. For the special class of pure Gaussian states the set of quantum covariance matrices with a given eigenspectrum consists of a single orbit of the action of the orthogonal symplectic group. The eigenspectrum of a CM of a state in this class is composed of pairs that each multiply to one. Our main contribution is finding a non-trivial class of eigenspectra with the property that the set of quantum covariance matrices corresponding to any eigenspectrum in this class are related by orthogonal symplectic transformations. We show that all non-degenerate eigenspectra with this property must belong to this class, and that the set of such eigenspectra coincides with the class of non-degenerate eigenspectra that identify the physically relevant thermal and squeezing parameters of a Gaussian state.
In this work we derive a matrix formulation of a noise-disturbance uncertainty relation, which is akin to the Robertson-Schr\"odinger uncertainty principle. Our inequality is stronger than Ozawa's uncertainty principle and takes noise-disturbance correlations into account. Moreover, we show that for certain types of measurement interactions it is covariant with respect to linear symplectic transformations of the noise and disturbance operators. Finally, we also study the tightness of our matrix inequality.
Uncertainty relations are usually stated as bounds on selected combinations of variances, but the full covariance matrix contains substantially richer information about the geometry of quantum state space and about the operational capabilities of quantum systems. Here we characterize the covariance matrices attainable by a finite-dimensional canonical pair of observables related by the discrete Fourier transform, the natural analogue of position and momentum in a finite Hilbert space. We combine analytic arguments with convex-geometric and semidefinite-programming methods based on joint numerical ranges to describe the admissible region through unitary invariants, in particular the trace and determinant of the covariance matrix. This provides a systematic way to identify extremal states, generalizing the notion of minimum-uncertainty states, and to quantify how the discrete uncertainty geometry approaches its continuous counterpart with increasing dimension. We further show that the resulting covariance-matrix characterization has direct consequences for applications: it yields accuracy bounds for multi parameter estimation protocols and separability criteria for finite-dimensional bipartite systems, including discrete analogues of continuous-variable EPR-type witnesses. Our results establish a systematic and versatile platform for connecting uncertainty relations, convex quantum geometry, metrology, and entanglement detection in finite-dimensional systems.
The focus of the present investigation is uncertainty relations for quantum particles, which quantify the fundamental limitations on some of their properties due to their incompatibility. In the first, longer part, we are concerned with preparational uncertainty \nrelations, while in the second we touch upon measurement inequalities through a generalisation of a model of joint measurement of position and momentum. \nSpecifically, starting from a triple of canonical operators, we prove product and sum inequalities for their variances with bounds larger than those following from combining the pairwise ones. We extend these results to N observables for a quantum particle and prove uncertainty relations for the sums and products of their variances \nin terms of the commutators. \nFurthermore, we present a general theory of preparational uncertainty relations for a quantum particle in one dimension and derive conditions for a smooth function of the second moments to assume a lower bound. The Robertson-Schroedinger inequality \nis found to be of special significance and we geometrically study the space of second moments. We prove new uncertainty relations for various functions of the variances and covariance of position and momentum of a quantum particle. Some of our findings are shown to extend to more than one spatial degree of freedom and we derive \nvarious types of inequalities. \nFinally, we propose a generalisation of the Arthurs-Kelly model of joint measurement of position and momentum to incorporate the case of more than two observables and derive joint-measurement inequalities for the statistics of the probes. For the case of \nthree canonical observables and suitable definitions of error and disturbance we obtain a number of error-error-error and error-error-disturbance inequalities and show that the lower bound is identical to the preparational one.
We analyze the Schwarz inequality and its generalizations, as well as inequalities resulting from the Jensen inequality. They are used in quantum theory to derive the Heisenberg-Robertson (HR) and Schroedinger-Robertson (SR) uncertainty relation for two non-commuting observables and their generalizations to three or more non-commuting observables. Jensen's inequality, in turn, is helpful in deriving various the "sum uncertainty relations" for two or more observables. Using these inequalities, we derive various types of generalized uncertainty relations for more than two non--commuting observables and analyze their properties and critical points. We also study the connections between the generalizations of the HR and SR uncertainty relations for two and more observables and the correlations of these observables in the state of the quantum system under study. In this analysis, we pay special attention to the consequences of the generalized SR uncertainty relation for three non--commuting observables on their correlations in a given state of a quantum system and to the connections of this relation with the appropriate correlation matrix, whose matrix elements are the quantum versions of the Pearson coefficient. We show also that the SR uncertainty relation (including the generalized ones) can be written in an equivalent way using these Pearson coefficients.