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arXiv:1407.7606 · Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical

A generalization of the functional calculus of observables and notion of joint measurability to the case of non-commuting observables

Richard DeJonghe, Kimberly Frey, Tom Imbo

Published Mar 20, 2015• 0 citations
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Abstract

For any pair of bounded observables A and B with pure point spectra, we construct an associated 'joint observable' which gives rise to a notion of a joint (projective) measurement of A and B , and which conforms to the intuition that one can measure non-commuting observables simultaneously, provided one is willing to give up arbitrary precision. As an application, we show how our notion of a joint observable naturally allows for a construction of a 'functional calculus,' so that for any pair of observables A and B as above, and any (Borel measurable) function , a new 'generalized observable' is obtained. Moreover, we show that this new functional calculus has some rather remarkable properties.

DOI
10.1088/1751-8113/48/14/145302

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For any pair of bounded observables A and B with pure point spectra, we construct an associated 'joint observable' which gives rise to a notion of a joint (projective) measurement of A and B , and which conforms to the intuition that one can measure non-commuting observables simultaneously, provided one is willing to give up arbitrary precision. As an application, we show how our notion of a joint observable naturally allows for a construction of a 'functional calculus,' so that for any pair of observables A and B as above, and any (Borel measurable) function , a new 'generalized observable' is obtained. Moreover, we show that this new functional calculus has some rather remarkable properties.
The fact that not all measurements can be carried out simultaneously is a peculiar feature of quantum mechanics and is responsible for many key phenomena in the theory, such as complementarity or uncertainty relations. For the special case of projective measurements, quantum behavior can be characterized by the commutator but for generalized measurements it is not easy to decide whether two measurements can still be understood in classical terms or whether the already show quantum features. We prove that a set of generalized measurements which does not satisfy the notion of joint measurability is nonclassical, as it can be used for the task of quantum steering. This shows that the notion of joint measurability is, among several definitions, the proper one to characterize quantum behavior. Moreover, the equivalence allows one to derive novel steering inequalities from known results on joint measurability and new criteria for joint measurability from known results on the steerability of states.
In many a traditional physics textbook, a quantum measurement is defined as a projective measurement represented by a Hermitian operator. In quantum information theory, however, the concept of a measurement is dealt with in complete generality and we are therefore forced to confront the more general notion of positive-operator valued measures (POVMs), which suffice to describe all measurements that can be implemented in quantum experiments. We study the (in)compatibility of such POVMs and show that quantum theory realizes all possible (in)compatibility relations among sets of POVMs. This is in contrast to the restricted case of projective measurements for which commutativity is essentially equivalent to compatibility. Our result therefore points out a fundamental feature with respect to the (in)compatibility of quantum observables that has no analog in the case of projective measurements.
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
One of the hallmarks of quantum theory is the realization that distinct measurements cannot in general be performed simultaneously, in stark contrast to classical physics. In this context the notions of coexistence and joint measurability are employed to analyze the possibility of measuring together two general quantum observables, characterizing different degrees of compatibility between measurements. It is known that two jointly measurable observables are always coexistent, and that the converse holds for various classes of observables, including the case of observables with two outcomes. Here we resolve, in the negative, the open question of whether this equivalence holds in general. Our resolution strengthens the notions of coexistence and joint measurability by showing that both are robust against small imperfections in the measurement setups.
Abstract The existence of a real linear space structure on the set of observables of a quantum system—i.e., the requirement that the linear combination of two generally non-commuting observables A, B is an observable as well—is a fundamental postulate of the quantum theory yet before introducing any structure of algebra. However, it is by no means clear how to choose the measuring instrument of a general observable of the form aA+bBaA+bBaA+bB a A + b B ( a,b∈Ra,b\in {{\mathbb {R}}}a,b∈R a , b ∈ R ) if such measuring instruments are given for the addends observables A and B when they are incompatible observables. A mathematical version of this dilemma is how to construct the spectral measure of f(aA+bB)f(aA+bB)f(aA+bB) f ( a A + b B ) out of the spectral measures of A and B. We present such a construction with a formula which is valid for general unbounded self-adjoint operators A and B, whose spectral measures may not commute, and a wide class of functions f:R→Cf: {{\mathbb {R}}}\rightarrow {{\mathbb {C}}}f:R→C f : R → C . In the bounded case, we prove that the Jordan product of A and B (and suitably symmetrized polynomials of A and B) can be constructed with the same procedure out of the spectral measures of A and B. The formula turns out to have an interesting operational interpretation and, in particular cases, a nice interplay with the theory of Feynman path integration and the Feynman–Kac formula.
We consider pairs of discrete quantum observables (POVMs) and analyze the relation between the notions of nondisturbance, joint measurability, and commutativity. We specify conditions under which these properties coincide or differ—depending, for instance, on the interplay between the number of outcomes and the Hilbert space dimension or on algebraic properties of the effect operators. We also show that (non-)disturbance is, in general, not a symmetric relation and that it can be decided and quantified by means of a semidefinite program.