I show that a nonnegative Wigner function that represents a mixture of Fock states is majorized by the Wigner function of the vacuum state. As a consequence, the integration of any concave function over the Wigner phase space has a lower value for the vacuum state than for a mixture of Fock states. The Shannon differential entropy is an example of such concave function of significant physical importance. I demonstrate that the very cause of the majorization lies in the fact that a Wigner function is the result of a convolution. My proof is based on a new majorization result dedicated to the convolution of the negative exponential distribution with a precisely constrained function. I present a geometrical interpretation of the new majorization property in a discrete setting and extend this relation to a continuous setting. Findings presented in this article might be expanded upon to explain why the Wigner function of the vacuum majorizes - beyond mixtures of Fock states - many other physical states represented by a nonnegative Wigner function.
I show that a nonnegative Wigner function that represents a mixture of Fock states is majorized by the Wigner function of the vacuum state. As a consequence, the integration of any concave function over the Wigner phase space has a lower value for the vacuum state than for a mixture of Fock states. The Shannon differential entropy is an example of such concave function of significant physical importance. I demonstrate that the very cause of the majorization lies in the fact that a Wigner function is the result of a convolution. My proof is based on a new majorization result dedicated to the convolution of the negative exponential distribution with a precisely constrained function. I present a geometrical interpretation of the new majorization property in a discrete setting and extend this relation to a continuous setting. Findings presented in this article might be expanded upon to explain why the Wigner function of the vacuum majorizes - beyond mixtures of Fock states - many other physical states represented by a nonnegative Wigner function.
We explore the role of majorization theory in quantum phase space. To this purpose, we restrict ourselves to quantum states with positive Wigner functions and show that the continuous version of majorization theory provides an elegant and very natural approach to exploring the information-theoretic properties of Wigner functions in phase space. After identifying all Gaussian pure states as equivalent in the precise sense of continuous majorization, which can be understood in light of Hudson's theorem, we conjecture a fundamental majorization relation: any positive Wigner function is majorized by the Wigner function of a Gaussian pure state (especially, the bosonic vacuum state or ground state of the harmonic oscillator). As a consequence, any Schur-concave function of the Wigner function is lower bounded by the value it takes for the vacuum state. This implies in turn that the Wigner entropy is lower bounded by its value for the vacuum state, while the converse is notably not true. Our main result is then to prove this fundamental majorization relation for a relevant subset of Wigner-positive quantum states which are mixtures of the three lowest eigenstates of the harmonic oscillator. Beyond that, the conjecture is also supported by numerical evidence. We conclude by discussing some implications of this conjecture in the context of entropic uncertainty relations in phase space.
Quantum uncertainty limits how strongly Wigner functions can concentrate in phase space. It is commonly conjectured that the vacuum Wigner function continuously majorizes that of any Wigner-positive state. However, by constructing Wigner-positive states whose localized quantum coherence lowers their Wigner entropy below the vacuum value, we show that this conjecture is incorrect. We restore vacuum majorization at finite resolution by integrating single-mode Wigner functions over concentric radial energy shells, obtaining probability vectors majorized by that of the vacuum for all Wigner-positive states and for Wigner-negative states with non-negative shell weights. Anchoring these shells to a fixed oscillator frame breaks affine symplectic invariance, rendering this relation strict for every non-vacuum Gaussian pure state. For Wigner-negative states, the persistence of negative shell weights defines a radial negativity scale with Airy-edge semiclassical asymptotics for highly excited Fock states. Operationally, we combine the majorization relation with partial transposition to obtain a two-mode entanglement criterion directly evaluable from radially binned joint homodyne outcomes without state reconstruction.
The Wigner entropy conjecture posits that pure Gaussian states minimize the Shannon entropy of non-negative Wigner functions, known as the Wigner entropy. We show that mixing a specific pure Wigner-negative state with another suitably chosen quantum state can restore Wigner positivity while retaining a Wigner entropy that is slightly - but strictly - below the vacuum entropy. As a consequence, we disprove the Wigner entropy conjecture, as well as the stronger Wigner majorization conjecture, by deriving simple analytical counterexamples with violations of the entropy bound no larger than 10−3. Such states with sub-vacuum Wigner entropy can be found arbitrarily close to the vacuum and can also exhibit sub-vacuum Wigner-Rényi α-entropy for 0<α<2. We identify the physical mechanism behind the existence of such states, which arises from a subtle interplay between the uncertainty principle and non-Gaussianity. The key idea of this paper was developed with the help of AI tools, building on the characterization of extreme non-negative Wigner functions.
Abstract It is common knowledge that the Wigner function of a quantum state may admit negative values, so that it cannot be viewed as a genuine probability density. Here, we examine the difficulty in finding an entropy-like functional in phase space that extends to negative Wigner functions and then advocate the merits of defining a complex-valued entropy associated with any Wigner function. This quantity, which we call thecomplex Wigner entropy, is defined via the analytic continuation of Shannon’s differential entropy of the Wigner function in the complex plane. We show that the complex Wigner entropy enjoys interesting properties, especially its real and imaginary parts are both invariant under Gaussian unitaries (displacements, rotations, and squeezing in phase space). Its real part is physically relevant when considering the evolution of the Wigner function under a Gaussian convolution, while its imaginary part is simply proportional to the negative volume of the Wigner function. Finally, we define the complex-valued Fisher information of any Wigner function, which is linked (via an extended de Bruijn’s identity) to the time derivative of the complex Wigner entropy when the state undergoes Gaussian additive noise. Overall, it is anticipated that the complex plane yields a proper framework for analyzing the entropic properties of quasiprobability distributions in phase space.
Positive Wigner functions can have less Shannon entropy than the vacuum, even arbitrarily close to the vacuum state. We construct physical counterexamples and identify the competition that controls their entropy: the relative entropy to the vacuum phase-space density can exceed twice the mean photon number. A two-level family exhibits a finite window in which coherence lowers entropy while preserving global Wigner positivity. A complementary construction repairs a remote negative tail with an exponentially small thermal admixture; an explicit mixing weight of 2×10−21 preserves a rigorously established entropy decrease. Optimisation over all one-mode Wigner-nonnegative states gives the sharp low-energy scale Eγ/[ln(1/E)]β, with γ≃0.7412 and β≃0.5861. Because γ<1, tensor products can have vanishing total energy and trace distance from vacuum while their entropy deficit diverges. We derive the exact half-transmission threshold for universal Shannon-entropy recovery and connect it to companion results showing residual non-Gaussian structure. The counterexamples reveal distinct controls on entropy: coherence sets the local descent, mode number amplifies it, and loss restores the vacuum bound.
Positive Wigner functions can have less Shannon entropy than the vacuum, even arbitrarily close to the vacuum state. We construct physical counterexamples and identify the competition that controls their entropy: the relative entropy to the vacuum phase-space density can exceed twice the mean photon number. A two-level family exhibits a finite window in which coherence lowers entropy while preserving global Wigner positivity. A complementary construction repairs a remote negative tail with an exponentially small thermal admixture; an explicit mixing weight of 2 × 10−21 preserves a rigorously established entropy decrease. Optimisation over all one-mode Wigner-nonnegative states gives the sharp low-energy scale Eγ/[ln(1/E)]β, with γ ≃ 0.7412 and β ≃ 0.5861. Because γ < 1, tensor products can have vanishing total energy and trace distance from vacuum while their entropy deficit diverges. We derive the exact half-transmission threshold for universal Shannon-entropy recovery and connect it to companion results showing residual non-Gaussian structure. The counterexamples reveal distinct controls on entropy: coherence sets the local descent, mode number amplifies it, and loss restores the vacuum bound. Version history. This is an expanded revision of arXiv:2609.13312v1, submitted on 10 September 2026 under the title "Physical Counterexamples to the Wigner Shannon Entropy Conjecture". That version already presented physical Wigner-positive counterexamples, finite-support families, a sixth-order one-photon-core construction, minimum thermal-repair asymptotics and the sharp one-mode low-energy deficit scale. The present revision develops the dimensional and loss-dependent consequences, supplies explicit rational entropy-sign certificates and a smaller thermal-repair example, and connects these results to the companion studies cited in the manuscript.