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arXiv:1206.6054 · Physical Review A

Degree of complementarity determines the nonlocality in quantum mechanics

Manik Banik, Md. Rajjak Gazi, Sibasish Ghosh A, Guruprasad Kar

Published May 20, 2013• 77 citations
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Abstract

Bohr's complementarity principle is one of the central concepts in quantum mechanics which restricts joint measurement for certain observables. Of course, later development shows that joint measurement could be possible for such observables with the introduction of a certain degree of unsharpness or fuzziness in the measurement. In this paper, we show that the optimal degree of unsharpness, which guarantees the joint measurement of all possible pairs of dichotomic observables, determines the degree of nonlocality in quantum mechanics as well as in more general no-signaling theories.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.87.052125

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Bohr's complementarity principle is one of the central concepts in quantum mechanics which restricts joint measurement for certain observables. Of course, later development shows that joint measurement could be possible for such observables with the introduction of a certain degree of unsharpness or fuzziness in the measurement. In this paper, we show that the optimal degree of unsharpness, which guarantees the joint measurement of all possible pairs of dichotomic observables, determines the degree of nonlocality in quantum mechanics as well as in more general no-signaling theories.
In quantum mechanics, nonlocality (a violation of a Bell inequality) is intimately linked to complementarity, by which we mean that consistently assigning values to different observables at the same time is not possible. Nonlocality can only occur when some of the relevant observables do not commute, and this noncommutativity makes the observables complementary. Beyond quantum mechanics, the concept of complementarity can be formalized in several distinct ways. Here we describe some of these possible formalizations and ask how they relate to nonlocality. We partially answer this question by describing two toy theories which display nonlocality and obey the no-signaling principle, although each of them does not display a certain kind of complementarity. The first toy theory has the property that it maximally violates the Clauser, Horn, Shimony, and Holt (CHSH) inequality, although the corresponding local observables are pairwise jointly measurable. The second toy theory also maximally violates the CHSH inequality, although its state space is classical and all measurements are mutually nondisturbing: if a measurement sequence contains some measurement twice with any number of other measurements in between, then these two measurements give the same outcome with certainty.
The fundamental principles of complementarity and uncertainty are shown to be related to the possibility of joint unsharp measurements of pairs of noncommuting quantum observables. A joint measurement scheme for complementary observables is proposed. The measured observables are represented as positive operator valued measures (POVMs), whose intrinsic fuzziness parameters are found to satisfy an intriguing pay-off relation reflecting the complementarity. At the same time, this relation represents an instance of a Heisenberg uncertainty relation for measurement imprecisions. A model-independent consideration shows that this uncertainty relation is logically connected with the joint measurability of the POVMs in question.
Bohr's principle of complementarity, prohibiting simultaneous access to certain physical properties within a single experimental arrangement, is considered to be a defining feature of quantum mechanics. It is commonly viewed as inducing an intrinsic hierarchy among incompatible observables: some sets of quantum properties are fundamentally more incompatible than others, as quantified by the maximal sharpness permitting their joint measurement. We show that this hierarchy ceases to be absolute in the multi-copy regime. Analyzing qubit spin observables, we prove a No-Comparison Theorem establishing that no global ordering of incompatible observable sets is preserved across all finite-copy configurations. In particular, two sets of observables can exhibit reversed complementarity ordering depending solely on whether the available resources are arranged as identical copies or as parallel-antiparallel pairs. Thus, the degree of quantum incompatibility is not an intrinsic property of observables alone but depends on the global configuration of the prepared quantum probes. Our results uncover a configuration-dependent structure of complementarity, reveal a subtle role of entanglement in shaping the structure of measurement limitations, and call for a reassessment of quantum information protocols under finite resources.
refer to the joint measurement problem for noncommuting quantum observables: “One of the aspects of quantum theory which has attracted the most general attention, is the novelty of the logical notions which it presupposes. It asserts that even a complete mathematical description of a physical system S does not in general enable one to predict with certainty the result of an experiment on S, and that in particular one can never predict with certainty both the position and the momentum of S (Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle). It further asserts that most pairs of observations are incompatible, and cannot be made on S simultaneously (Principle of Non-commutativity of Observations).” The object of the present paper is to consider what approximate solution one may hope to find to the joint measurement problem. Our main conclusion, based on a rigorous notion of unsharp observable, is that one can reasonably expect to find approximate joint measurements for any pair of noncommuting sharp observables, provided a trade-off in the sense of a Heisenberg uncertainty relation for measurement inaccuracies is taken into account. In addition, it will be seen that as a consequence of the noncom-mutativity of the given observables, the approximating observables must have degrees of unsharpness that obey yet another trade-off relation in the spirit of Heisenberg’s principle. These connections will be
We derive a single inequality as the sufficient and necessary condition for two unsharp observables of a two-level system to be jointly measurable in a single apparatus and construct explicitly the joint observables of two jointly measurable observables. By introducing a generalized distinguishability as a measure of the unsharpness of an unsharp measurement, we derive a complementarity inequality, which generalizes Englert's duality inequality, from the condition of joint measurement of two orthogonal unsharp observables.
Abstract The notion of coexistence of quantum observables was introduced to describe the possibility of measuring two or more observables together. Here we survey the various different formalisations of this notion and their connections. We review examples illustrating the necessary degrees of unsharpness for two noncommuting observables to be jointly measurable (in one sense of the phrase). We demonstrate the possibility of measuring together (in another sense of the phrase) noncoexistent observables. This leads us to a reconsideration of the connection between joint measurability and noncommutativity of observables and of the statistical and individual aspects of quantum measurements.