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arXiv:1601.07772 · Physical Review Letters

Wigner Functions for Arbitrary Quantum Systems

Todd Tilma, M. J. Everitt, John H. Samson, William J. Munro, Kae Nemoto

Published Oct 24, 2016• 126 citations
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Abstract

The possibility of constructing a complete, continuous Wigner function for any quantum system has been a subject of investigation for over 50 years. A key system that has served to illustrate the difficulties of this problem has been an ensemble of spins. Here we present a general and consistent framework for constructing Wigner functions exploiting the underlying symmetries in the physical system at hand. The Wigner function can be used to fully describe any quantum system of arbitrary dimension or ensemble size.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.117.180401

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The possibility of constructing a complete, continuous Wigner function for any quantum system has been a subject of investigation for over 50 years. A key system that has served to illustrate the difficulties of this problem has been an ensemble of spins. Here we present a general and consistent framework for constructing Wigner functions exploiting the underlying symmetries in the physical system at hand. The Wigner function can be used to fully describe any quantum system of arbitrary dimension or ensemble size.
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Since the very early days of quantum theory there have been numerous attempts to interpret quantum mechanics as a statistical theory. This is equivalent to describing quantum states and ensembles together with their dynamics entirely in terms of phase-space distributions. Finite dimensional systems have historically been an issue. In recent works [Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 180401 (2016) and Phys. Rev. A 96, 022117 (2017)] we presented a framework for representing any quantum state as a complete continuous Wigner function. Here we extend this work to its partner function---the Weyl function. In doing so we complete the phase-space formulation of quantum mechanics---extending work by Wigner, Weyl, Moyal, and others to any quantum system. This work is structured in three parts. First we provide a brief modernized discussion of the general framework of phase-space quantum mechanics. We extend previous work and show how this leads to a framework that can describe any system in phase space---putting it for the first time on a truly equal footing to Schr\"odinger's and Heisenberg's formulation of quantum mechanics. Importantly, we do this in a way that respects the unifying principles of ``parity'' and ``displacement'' in a natural broadening of previously developed phase-space concepts and methods. Secondly we consider how this framework is realized for different quantum systems; in particular we consider the proper construction of Weyl functions for some example finite dimensional systems. Finally we relate the Wigner and Weyl distributions to statistical properties of any quantum system or set of systems.
The Wigner function of quantum systems is an effective instrument for constructing an approximate classical description of the systems for which the classical approximation is possible. In recent years, the Wigner function formalism has been applied as well to seek indications of specific quantum properties of quantum systems leading to the impossibility of constructing the classical approximation. Used most of all as such an indication is the existence of negative values in the Wigner function for specific states of the quantum system being studied. The existence of such values itself prejudices the probabilistic interpretation of the Wigner function, though for an arbitrary observable depending jointly on the coordinate and the momentum of the quantum system just the Wigner function provides an effective instrument for calculating the average value and the other statistical characteristics. In this paper, a probabilistic interpretation of the Wigner function based on coordinating a theoretical probabilistic definition of the probability density, with restrictions to a physically small domain of phase space due to the uncertainty principle, is proposed.
We study a generalization of the Wigner function to arbitrary tuples of hermitian operators. We show that for any collection of hermitian operators A1...An , and any quantum state there is a unique joint distribution on R^n, with the property that the marginals of all linear combinations of the operators coincide with their quantum counterpart. In other words, we consider the inverse Radon transform of the exact quantum probability distributions of all linear combinations. We call it the Wigner distribution, because for position and momentum this property defines the standard Wigner function. We discuss the application to finite dimensional systems, establish many basic properties and illustrate these by examples. The properties include the support, the location of singularities, positivity, the behavior under symmetry groups, and informational completeness.
We study a generalization of the Wigner function to arbitrary tuples of Hermitian operators. We show that for any collection of Hermitian operators A1, …, An and any quantum state, there is a unique joint distribution on Rn with the property that the marginals of all linear combinations of the Ak coincide with their quantum counterparts. In other words, we consider the inverse Radon transform of the exact quantum probability distributions of all linear combinations. We call it the Wigner distribution because for position and momentum, this property defines the standard Wigner function. We discuss the application to finite dimensional systems, establish many basic properties, and illustrate these by examples. The properties include the support, the location of singularities, positivity, the behavior under symmetry groups, and informational completeness.