The uncertainty principle is one of the characteristic properties of quantum theory based on incompatibility. Apart from the incompatible relation of quantum states, mutually exclusiveness is another remarkable phenomenon in the information- theoretic foundation of quantum theory. We investigate the role of mutual exclusive physical states in the recent work of stronger uncertainty relations for all incompatible observables by Mccone and Pati and generalize the weighted uncertainty relation to the product form as well as their multi-observable analogues. The new bounds capture both incompatibility and mutually exclusiveness, and are tighter compared with the existing bounds.
The uncertainty principle is one of the characteristic properties of quantum theory based on incompatibility. Apart from the incompatible relation of quantum states, mutually exclusiveness is another remarkable phenomenon in the information- theoretic foundation of quantum theory. We investigate the role of mutual exclusive physical states in the recent work of stronger uncertainty relations for all incompatible observables by Mccone and Pati and generalize the weighted uncertainty relation to the product form as well as their multi-observable analogues. The new bounds capture both incompatibility and mutually exclusiveness, and are tighter compared with the existing bounds.
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 uncertainty principle can be expressed in entropic terms, also taking into account the role of entanglement in reducing uncertainty. The information exclusion principle bounds instead the correlations that can exist between the outcomes of incompatible measurements on one physical system, and a second reference system. We provide a more stringent formulation of both the uncertainty principle and the information exclusion principle, with direct applications for, e.g., the security analysis of quantum key distribution, entanglement estimation, and quantum communication. We also highlight a fundamental distinction between the complementarity of observables in terms of uncertainty and in terms of information.
Uncertainty relations occupy a fundamental position in quantum mechanics. We propose stronger variance-based uncertainty relations for the product and sum of variances of two incompatible observables in a finite dimensional Hilbert space. It is shown that the new uncertainty relations provide near-optimal state-dependent bounds, which can be useful for quantum metrology, entanglement detection etc. in quantum information theory. It is further shown that the uncertainty relations are related to the spreads of the distribution of measurement outcomes caused by incompatible observables. Intuitively, this means that the ability of learning the distribution has both the upper and lower bounds. Combination of these bounds provides naturally an uncertainty interval which captures the essence of uncertainty in quantum theory. Finally, we explain how to employ entropic uncertainty relations to derive lower bounds for the product of variances of incompatible observables.
The Heisenberg-Robertson uncertainty relation quantitatively expresses the impossibility of jointly sharp preparation of incompatible observables. However, it does not capture the concept of incompatible observables because it can be trivial even for two incompatible observables. We experimentally demonstrate that the new stronger uncertainty relations proposed by Maccone and Pati [Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 260401 (2014)] relating to the sum of variances are valid in a state-dependent manner and that the lower bound is guaranteed to be nontrivial when two observables are incompatible on the state of the system being measured. The behavior we find agrees with the predictions of quantum theory and obeys the new uncertainty relations even for the special states which trivialize the Heisenberg-Robertson relation. We realize a direct measurement model and perform an experimental investigation of the strengthened relations.
Uncertainty relation lies at the heart of quantum mechanics, characterizing the incompatibility of non-commuting observables in the preparation of quantum states. An important question is how to improve the lower bound of uncertainty relation. Here we present a variance-based sum uncertainty relation for N incompatible observables stronger than the simple generalization of an existing uncertainty relation for two observables. Further comparisons of our uncertainty relation with other related ones for spin- and spin-1 particles indicate that the obtained uncertainty relation gives a better lower bound.
The uncertainty principle is fundamentally rooted in the algebraic asymmetry between observables. We introduce a new class of uncertainty relations grounded in the resource theory of asymmetry, where incompatibility is quantified by an observable's intrinsic, state-independent capacity to break the symmetry associated with another. This ``operator asymmetry,'' formalized as the incompatibility norm, leads to a variance-based uncertainty relation for pure states that can be tighter than the standard Robertson bound. Most significantly, this framework resolves a long-standing open problem in quantum information theory: the formulation of a universally valid, product-form uncertainty relation for the Wigner-Yanase skew information. We demonstrate the practical power of our framework by deriving tighter quantum speed limits for the dynamics of nearly conserved quantities, which are crucial for understanding non-equilibrium phenomena such as prethermalization and many-body localization. This work provides both a new conceptual lens for understanding quantum uncertainty and a powerful, versatile toolkit for its application.