We propose a class of incompatibility measures for quantum observables based on quantifying the effect of a measurement of one observable on the statistics of the outcomes of another. Specifically, for a pair of observables
A and
B with purely discrete spectra, we compare the following two probability distributions: one resulting from a measurement of
A followed by a measurement of
B on a given state and the other obtained from a measurement of
B alone on the same state. We show that maximizing the distance between these two distributions over all states yields a valid measure of the incompatibility of observables
A and
B, which is zero if and only if they commute and is strictly greater than zero (and less than or equal to one) otherwise. For finite-dimensional systems, we obtain a tight upper bound on the incompatibility of any pair of observables and show that the bound is attained when the observables are totally nondegenerate and associated with mutually unbiased bases. In the process, we also establish an important relation between the incompatibility of a pair of observables and the maximal disturbances due to their measurements. Finally, we indicate how these measures of incompatibility and disturbance can be extended to the more general class of nonprojective measurements. In particular, we obtain a nontrivial upper bound on the incompatibility of one L\"uders instrument with another.
Two different approaches to a characterization of the degree of (in)compatibility of quantum observables are investigated. First, recent examples of the (partial) commutativity of spectral measures of incompatible observables are proved to be generic. The analysis is extended to the case of compatible or incompatible unsharp, or stochastic observables, leading to a general criterion for commutativity of position and momentum effects. Further, a recently proposed information theoretic quantification of the (in)compatibility of noncommuting observables is generalized, and the relation between ‘‘maximal information,’’ ‘‘minimal uncertainty,’’ partial commutativity, and strict correlation is further clarified. Both approaches are illustrated in a number of examples.
Observables in quantum mechanics are generally complementary, that is, they reveal mutually incompatible pieces of information about a given system. This property is not only a fundamental tenet of the quantum formalism, but also a key component in quantum cryptographic protocols. As such it has fuelled much research into finding sets of highly complementary observables. In its strongest form -- the one we consider in this work -- the information between complementary observables is not merely incompatible but mutually exclusive: maximal information about one observable implies no information about the other, and vice versa. Maximal sets of non-degenerate complementary observables are known to exist in systems of prime power dimension such as n-qubit systems. Here, we study complementarity of degenerate observables, specifically we prove that observables associated with the n-qubit Pauli group also exhibit complementarity under this restriction: first, we obtain a criterion for two such observables to be complementary and, second, we relate maximal sets of complementary observables with informational pure state complementarity equalities, further studied in two companion papers. Equivalently, these results can be formulated in terms of maximal complementary sets of (not necessarily maximal) Abelian subgroups of the Pauli group linking with (possibly coarse-grained) mutually unbiased bases. Finally, we prove that these complementarity sets entail strong entropic uncertainty relations.