Various theories that aim at unifying gravity with quantum mechanics suggest modifications of the Heisenberg algebra for position and momentum. From the perspective of quantum mechanics, such modifications lead to new uncertainty relations that are thought (but not proven) to imply the existence of a minimal observable length. Here we prove this statement in a framework of sufficient physical and structural assumptions. Moreover, we present a general method that allows us to formulate optimal and state-independent variance-based uncertainty relations. In addition, instead of variances, we make use of entropies as a measure of uncertainty and provide uncertainty relations in terms of min and Shannon entropies. We compute the corresponding entropic minimal lengths and find that the minimal length in terms of min entropy is exactly 1 bit.
Various theories that aim at unifying gravity with quantum mechanics suggest modifications of the Heisenberg algebra for position and momentum. From the perspective of quantum mechanics, such modifications lead to new uncertainty relations that are thought (but not proven) to imply the existence of a minimal observable length. Here we prove this statement in a framework of sufficient physical and structural assumptions. Moreover, we present a general method that allows us to formulate optimal and state-independent variance-based uncertainty relations. In addition, instead of variances, we make use of entropies as a measure of uncertainty and provide uncertainty relations in terms of min and Shannon entropies. We compute the corresponding entropic minimal lengths and find that the minimal length in terms of min entropy is exactly 1 bit.
The well-known Heisenberg--Robertson uncertainty relation for a pair of noncommuting observables, is expressed in terms of the product of variances and the commutator among the operators, computed for the quantum state of a system. Different modified commutation relations have been considered in the last years with the purpose of taking into account the effect of quantum gravity. Indeed it can be seen that letting [X,P]=iℏ(1+βP2) implies the existence of a minimal length proportional to β. The Bialynicki-Birula--Mycielski entropic uncertainty relation in terms of Shannon entropies is also seen to be deformed in the presence of a minimal length, corresponding to a strictly positive deformation parameter β. Generalized entropies can be implemented. Indeed, results for the sum of position and (auxiliary) momentum Rényi entropies with conjugated indices have been provided recently for the ground and first excited state. We present numerical findings for conjugated pairs of entropic indices, for the lowest lying levels of the deformed harmonic oscillator system in 1D, taking into account the position distribution for the wavefunction and the actual momentum.
Although gravity could not be quantized yet, there are good theoretical evidences that the unification of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics should lead to the existence of a minimal observable length, a length scale below which the very notion of length looses meaning. Such effect proves to be worth some further analysis, for it acts as a natural regulator parameter, thus avoiding the divergences that plague Quantum Field Theories. In order to investigate some of the physical consequences of the existence of this peculiar effect, we propose to include it in the framework of Quantum Mechanics by modifying the Heisenberg algebra (i.e., the commutation relation of position and momentum operators, Xˆ and Pˆ), so that a minimum non-zero value for the uncertainty ?x emerges, which, being a limitation to the localizability of particles, acts as a minimal length. The Hilbert space of the theory must be modified accordingly. As we will see, the changes are not merely quantitative. On the contrary, our main result is that the familiar concept of “position measurement” must be reformulated, as well as other concepts related to it. We present a proposal for such reformulation.
The well-known Heisenberg–Robertson uncertainty relation for a pair of noncommuting observables, is expressed in terms of the product of variances and the commutator among the operators, computed for the quantum state of a system. Different modified commutation relations have been considered in the last years with the purpose of taking into account the effect of quantum gravity. Indeed it can be seen that letting [ X , P ] = i ℏ ( 1 + β P 2 ) implies the existence of a minimal length proportional to β . The Bialynicki-Birula–Mycielski entropic uncertainty relation in terms of Shannon entropies is also seen to be deformed in the presence of a minimal length, corresponding to a strictly positive deformation parameter β . Generalized entropies can be implemented. Indeed, results for the sum of position and (auxiliary) momentum Rényi entropies with conjugated indices have been provided recently for the ground and first excited state. We present numerical findings for conjugated pairs of entropic indices, for the lowest lying levels of the deformed harmonic oscillator system in 1D, taking into account the position distribution for the wavefunction and the actual momentum.
Uncertainty principle, which was first introduced by Werner Heisenberg in 1927, forms a fundamental component of quantum mechanics. A graceful aspect of quantum mechanics is that the uncertainty relations between incompatible observables allow for succinct quan- titative formulations of this revolutionary idea: it is impossible to simultaneously measure two complementary variables of a particle in precision. In particular, information theory offers two basic ways to express the Heisenberg’s principle: variance-based uncertainty relations and entropic uncertainty relations. We first investigate the uncertainty relations based on the sum of variances and derive a family of weighted uncertainty relations to provide an optimal lower bound for all situations. Our work indicates that it seems unreasonable to assume a priori that incompatible observables have equal contribution to the variance-based sum form uncertainty relations. We also study the role of mutually exclusive physical states in the recent work and generalize the variance-based uncertainty relations to mutually exclusive uncertainty relations. Next, we develop a new kind of entanglement detection criteria within the framework of marjorization theory and its matrix representation. By virtue of majorization uncertainty bounds, we are able to construct the entanglement criteria which have advantage over the scalar detect- ing algorithms as they are often stronger and tighter. Furthermore, we explore various expression of entropic uncertainty relations, including sum of Shannon entropies, majorization uncer- tainty relations and uncertainty relations in presence of quantum memory. For entropic uncertainty relations without quantum side information, we provide several tighter bounds for multi-measurements, with some of them also valid for Rényi and Tsallis entropies besides the Shannon entropy. We employ majorization theory and actions of the symmetric group to obtain an admixture bound for entropic uncertainty relations with multi-measurements. Comparisons among existing bounds for multi-measurements are also given. However,classical entropic uncertainty relations assume there has only classical side information. For modern uncertainty relations, those who allowed for non-trivial amount of quantum side information, their bounds have been strengthened by our recent result for both two and multi- measurements. Finally, we propose an approach which can extend all uncertainty relations on Shannon entropies to allow for quantum side information and discuss the applications of our entropic framework. Combined with our uniform entanglement frames, it is possible to detect entanglement via entropic uncertainty relations even if there is no quantum side in- formation. With the rising of quantum information theory, uncertainty relations have been established as important tools for a wide range of applications, such as quantum cryptography, quantum key distribution, entanglement detection, quantum metrology, quantum speed limit and so on. It is thus necessary to focus on the study of uncertainty relations.
The emergence of a minimal length at the Planck scale is consistent with modern developments in quantum gravity. This is taken into account by transforming the Heisenberg uncertainty principle into the generalized uncertainty principle. Here, the position-momentum commutator is modified accordingly. In this paper, majorization uncertainty relations within the generalized uncertainty principle are considered. Dealing with observables with continuous spectra, each of the axes of interest is divided into a set of non-intersecting bins. Such formulation is consistent with real experiments with a necessarily limited precision. On the other hand, the majorization approach is mainly indicative for high-resolution measurements with sufficiently small bins. Indeed, the effects of the uncertainty principle are brightly manifested just in this case. The current study aims to reveal how the generalized uncertainty principle affects the leading terms of the majorization bound for position and momentum measurements. Interrelations with entropic formulations of this principle are briefly discussed.
In the framework of the generalized uncertainty principle, the position and momentum operators obey the modified commutation relation X,P=iħ1+βP2 , where β is the deformation parameter. Since the validity of the uncertainty relation for the Shannon entropies proposed by Beckner, Bialynicki-Birula, and Mycielski (BBM) depends on both the algebra and the used representation, we show that using the formally self-adjoint representation, that is, X=x and P=tanβp/β , where [x,p]=iħ , the BBM inequality is still valid in the form Sx+Sp≥1+lnπ as well as in ordinary quantum mechanics. We explicitly indicate this result for the harmonic oscillator in the presence of the minimal length.