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arXiv:1704.03222 · Physical Review A

Minimum-uncertainty states and completeness of non-negative quasiprobability of finite-dimensional quantum systems

T. Hashimoto, A. Hayashi, M. Horibe

Published Feb 25, 2019• 3 citations
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Abstract

We construct minimum-uncertainty states and a non-negative quasiprobability distribution for quantum systems on a finite-dimensional space. We reexamine the theorem of Massar and Spindel for the uncertainty relation of the two unitary operators related by the discrete Fourier transformation. It is shown that some assumptions in their proof can be justified by the use of the Perron-Frobenius theorem. The minimum-uncertainty states are the ones that saturate this uncertainty inequality. The continuum limit is closely analyzed by introducing a scale factor in the limiting scheme. Using the minimum-uncertainty states, we construct a non-negative quasiprobability distribution. Its marginal distributions are smeared out. However, we show that this quasiprobability is optimal in the sense that there does not exist a non-negative quasiprobability distribution with sharper marginal properties if the translational covariance in the phase space is assumed. Generally, it is desirable that the quasiprobability is complete, i.e., it contains full information of the state. We show that the obtained quasiprobability is indeed complete if the dimension of the state space is odd, whereas it is not if the dimension is even.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.99.022126

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We construct minimum-uncertainty states and a non-negative quasiprobability distribution for quantum systems on a finite-dimensional space. We reexamine the theorem of Massar and Spindel for the uncertainty relation of the two unitary operators related by the discrete Fourier transformation. It is shown that some assumptions in their proof can be justified by the use of the Perron-Frobenius theorem. The minimum-uncertainty states are the ones that saturate this uncertainty inequality. The continuum limit is closely analyzed by introducing a scale factor in the limiting scheme. Using the minimum-uncertainty states, we construct a non-negative quasiprobability distribution. Its marginal distributions are smeared out. However, we show that this quasiprobability is optimal in the sense that there does not exist a non-negative quasiprobability distribution with sharper marginal properties if the translational covariance in the phase space is assumed. Generally, it is desirable that the quasiprobability is complete, i.e., it contains full information of the state. We show that the obtained quasiprobability is indeed complete if the dimension of the state space is odd, whereas it is not if the dimension is even.
For a qudit, a quantum system on a finite dimensional Hilbert space, we construct minimum uncertainty states and a non-negative quasi probability distribution. They are the discrete version of the coherent states and the Husimi function in the continuous quantum mechanics. The two bases related by the discrete Fourier transformation are identified with the position and momentum bases. We prove an inequality concerning uncertainties of the position and momentum of a qudit. The minimum uncertainty states are the ones which saturate the inequality. Like the coherent states, they are not mutually orthogonal but comprise an overcomplete set in the state space. As the dimension of the Hilbert space goes to infinity, these states approach the coherent states. Using the minimum uncertain states, we construct a non-negative quasi probability distribution for a qudit. Its marginal distributions are smeared out, but we show that there does not exist a non-negative quasi probability distribution with sharper marginal properties if the translational covariance is assumed.
Uncertainty relations are usually stated as bounds on selected combinations of variances, but the full covariance matrix contains substantially richer information about the geometry of quantum state space and about the operational capabilities of quantum systems. Here we characterize the covariance matrices attainable by a finite-dimensional canonical pair of observables related by the discrete Fourier transform, the natural analogue of position and momentum in a finite Hilbert space. We combine analytic arguments with convex-geometric and semidefinite-programming methods based on joint numerical ranges to describe the admissible region through unitary invariants, in particular the trace and determinant of the covariance matrix. This provides a systematic way to identify extremal states, generalizing the notion of minimum-uncertainty states, and to quantify how the discrete uncertainty geometry approaches its continuous counterpart with increasing dimension. We further show that the resulting covariance-matrix characterization has direct consequences for applications: it yields accuracy bounds for multi parameter estimation protocols and separability criteria for finite-dimensional bipartite systems, including discrete analogues of continuous-variable EPR-type witnesses. Our results establish a systematic and versatile platform for connecting uncertainty relations, convex quantum geometry, metrology, and entanglement detection in finite-dimensional systems.
Negativity in a quasiprobability representation is typically interpreted as an indication of nonclassical behavior. However, this does not preclude states that are non-negative from exhibiting phenomena typically associated with quantum mechanics---the single qubit stabilizer states have non-negative Wigner functions and yet play a fundamental role in many quantum information tasks. We seek to determine what other sets of quantum states and measurements of a qubit can be non-negative in a quasiprobability distribution, and to identify nontrivial groups of unitary transformations that permute the states in such a set. These sets of states and measurements are analogous to the single qubit stabilizer states. We show that no quasiprobability representation of a qubit can be non-negative for more than two bases in any plane of the Bloch sphere. Furthermore, there is a unique set of four bases that can be non-negative in an arbitrary quasiprobability representation of a qubit. We provide an exhaustive list of the sets of single qubit bases that are non-negative in some quasiprobability distribution and are also closed under a group of unitary transformations. This list includes two nontrivial families of three bases that both include the single qubit stabilizer states as a special case. For qudits, we prove that there can be no more than 2d2{2}^{{d}^{2}}2d2 states in non-negative bases of a ddd-dimensional Hilbert space in any quasiprobability representation. Furthermore, these bases must satisfy certain symmetry constraints, corresponding to requiring the bases to be sufficiently different from each other.
Measurement incompatibility and the negativity of quasiprobability distribution functions are well-known non-classical aspects of quantum systems. Both of them are widely accepted resources in quantum information processing. We acquaint an approach to establish a connection between the negativity of the Wigner function, a well-known phase-space quasiprobability distribution, of finite-dimensional Hermitian operators and incompatibility among them. We calculate the negativity of the Wigner distribution function for noisy eigenprojectors of qubit Pauli operators as a function of the noise and observe that the amount of negativity increases with the decrease in noise vis-à-vis the increase in the incompatibility. It becomes maximum for the set of maximally unbiased operators. Our results, although qualitatively, provide a direct comparison between relative degrees of incompatibility among a set of operators for different amounts of noise. We generalize our treatment for higher dimensional qudits for specific finite-dimensional Gell-Mann operators to observe that with an increase in the dimension of the operators, the negativity of their Wigner distribution, and hence incompatibility, decreases.
The conventional Fourier transform has a well-known uncertainty relation that is defined in terms of the first and second moments of both a function and its Fourier transform. It is also well known that Gaussian functions, when translated to an arbitrary centre and supplemented by a linear phase factor, provide a complete set of minimum uncertainty states (MUSs) that exactly achieves the lower bound set by this uncertainty relation. A similarly general set of MUSs and uncertainty relations are derived here for discrete and/or periodic generalizations of the Fourier transform, namely for the discrete Fourier transform and the Fourier series. These extensions require a modified definition for the width of a periodic distribution, and they lead to more complex uncertainty relations that turn out to depend on the centroid location and mean frequency of the distribution. The derivations lead to novel generalizations of Hermite–Gaussian functions and, like Gaussians, the MUSs can play a special role in a range of Fourier applications.
We derive several uncertainty relations for two arbitrary unitary operators acting on physical states of a Hilbert space. We show that our bounds are tighter in various cases than the ones existing in the current literature. Using the uncertainty relation for the unitary operators, we obtain the tight state-independent lower bound for the uncertainty of two Pauli observables and anticommuting observables in higher dimensions. With regard to the minimum-uncertainty states, we derive the minimum-uncertainty state equation by the analytic method and relate this to the ground-state problem of the Harper Hamiltonian. Furthermore, the higher-dimensional limit of the uncertainty relations and minimum-uncertainty states are explored. From an operational point of view, we show that the uncertainty in the unitary operator is directly related to the visibility of quantum interference in an interferometer where one arm of the interferometer is affected by a unitary operator. This shows a principle of preparation uncertainty, i.e., for any quantum system, the amount of visibility for two general noncommuting unitary operators is nontrivially upper bounded.