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arXiv:2407.20481 · Physical Review A

Stronger sum uncertainty relations for non-Hermitian operators

Xiao-Feng Song, Yi-Fang Ren, Shuang Liu, Xi-Hao Chen, Yusuf Turek

Published Jan 29, 2025• 2 citations

Abstract

The uncertainty relations (URs) of two arbitrary Hermitian and non-Hermitian incompatible operators represented by the product of variances have been confirmed theoretically and experimentally in various physical systems. However, the lower bound of the product uncertainty inequality can be null even for two noncommuting operators, i.e., a trivial case. Therefore, for two incompatible operators over the measured system state, the associated URs regarding the sum of variances are valid in a state-dependent manner, and the lower bound is guaranteed to be nontrivial. Although the sum URs formulated for Hermitian and unitary operators have been affirmed, the general forms for arbitrary non-Hermitian operators have not yet been investigated. This study presents the sum URs for non-Hermitian operators acting on system states using an appropriate Hilbert-space metric. The compatible forms of our sum inequalities with the conventional quantum mechanics are also provided via the $G$-metric formalism. Concrete examples illustrate the validity of the proposed sum URs in both $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric and $\mathcal{PT}$-broken phases. The developed methods and results can help give an in-depth understanding of the usefulness of $G$-metric formalism in non-Hermitian quantum mechanics and the sum URs of incompatible operators within.

DOI: 10.1103/physreva.111.012221

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The uncertainty relations (URs) of two arbitrary Hermitian and non-Hermitian incompatible operators represented by the product of variances have been confirmed theoretically and experimentally in various physical systems. However, the lower bound of the product uncertainty inequality can be null even for two noncommuting operators, i.e., a trivial case. Therefore, for two incompatible operators over the measured system state, the associated URs regarding the sum of variances are valid in a state-dependent manner, and the lower bound is guaranteed to be nontrivial. Although the sum URs formulated for Hermitian and unitary operators have been affirmed, the general forms for arbitrary non-Hermitian operators have not yet been investigated. This study presents the sum URs for non-Hermitian operators acting on system states using an appropriate Hilbert-space metric. The compatible forms of our sum inequalities with the conventional quantum mechanics are also provided via the

G

-metric formalism. Concrete examples illustrate the validity of the proposed sum URs in both

\mathcal{PT}

-symmetric and

\mathcal{PT}

-broken phases. The developed methods and results can help give an in-depth understanding of the usefulness of

G

-metric formalism in non-Hermitian quantum mechanics and the sum URs of incompatible operators within.

Abstract Unitary uncertainty relations provide a theoretical framework that enhances our understanding of the principles underlying quantum mechanics and its applications in quantum information science. In this study, we derive both the unitary uncertainty relation and the weighted unitary uncertainty relation based on the sum variance for arbitrary pairs of unitary operators. By applying the arithmetic geometric mean inequality, we obtain a lower bound that is tighter than the one provided by Bagchi and Pati. [Physical Review A 94,042104] for two unitary operators. To illustrate our results, we include examples of both the unitary uncertainty relation and the weighted uncertainty relation based on sum variance.

The Heisenberg-Robertson uncertainty relation expresses a limitation in the possible preparations of the system by giving a lower bound to the product of the variances of two observables in terms of their commutator. Notably, it does not capture the concept of incompatible observables because it can be trivial; i.e., the lower bound can be null even for two noncompatible observables. Here we give two stronger uncertainty relations, relating to the sum of variances, whose lower bound is guaranteed to be nontrivial whenever the two observables are incompatible on the state of the system.

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.

We unify the product and the sum form variance-based uncertainties to a Schr\{o}dinger-liked uncertainty relation. Some well-known uncertainties in either product or sum form can be recovered by the Schr\{o}dinger-liked uncertainty, i.e., the product form uncertainty is the Schr\{o}dinger-liked uncertainty relation for Hermitian operators and the sum form uncertainty is actually Schr\{o}dinger-liked uncertainty relation for non-Hermitian operators. Thus the Schr\{o}dinger-liked uncertainty relation provides a unified uncertainty relation. Also, the unified uncertainty reveals some quantum properties that the traditional uncertainty relation cannot do, and indicates that the uncertainty relation for the incompatible observables is bounded not only by the commutation relation between themselves, but also by the quantities related with the other operator, which is named as auxiliary operator. The importance of the unified uncertainty, as well as the concept of the auxiliary operator deduced from it, is demonstrated in explaining and fixing the trivial lower bound appearing in the traditional uncertainty relations.

We prove a few state-dependent uncertainty relations for the product as well as the sum of variances of two incompatible observables. These uncertainty relations are shown to be tighter than the Robertson-Schr\"odinger uncertainty relation and other ones existing in the current literature. Also, we derive a state-dependent upper bound to the sum and the product of variances using the reverse Cauchy-Schwarz inequality and the Dunkl-Williams inequality. Our results suggest that not only can we not prepare quantum states for which two incompatible observables can have sharp values, but also we have both the lower and the upper limits on the variances of quantum mechanical observables at a fundamental level.

It is well known that almost all uncertainty relations including Heisenberg uncertainty relation and Schrödinger uncertainty relation were given by product types of trace inequalities.This is why these results were proved by Schwarz's inequality.These product types of uncertainty relations were extended to the case of not necessarily hermitian quantum mechanical observables and positive operators representing quantum states.On the other hand sum types of uncertainty relations were given for arbitrary finite N not necessarily hermitian quantum mechanical observables.Some uncertainty relations are presented by generalized quasi-metric adjusted skew informations for two different generalized states.These uncertainty relations are nontrivial as long as the observables are mutually noncommutative.The relations among these new and existing uncertainty inequalities have been investigated.Finally, the reverse inequalities of the sum types of uncertainty relations are obtained.