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arXiv:2411.08131 · Modern Physics Letters A

On some states minimizing uncertainty relations: A new look at these relations

K. Urbanowski

Published Mar 25, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

The Heisenberg–Robertson (HR) and Robertson–Schrödinger (RS) uncertainty relations are studied. Analyzing the RS uncertainty relation we found, that there can exist a large set of states of the quantum system under considerations, for which the lower bound of the product of the standard deviations of a pair of noncommuting observables, A and B, is zero, and which differ from those described in the literature for the HR uncertainty relation. These states are not eigenstates of either the observable A or B. The correlation function for these observables in such states is equal to zero. We have also shown that the so-called “sum uncertainty relations” also do not provide any information about lower bounds on the standard deviations calculated for these states. We additionally show that the uncertainty principle in its most general form has two faces: One is that it is a lower bound on the product of standard deviations, and the other is that the product of standard deviations is an upper bound on the modulus of the correlation function of a pair of the noncommuting observables in the state under consideration.

DOI
10.1142/s0217732326501063

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The Heisenberg–Robertson (HR) and Robertson–Schrödinger (RS) uncertainty relations are studied. Analyzing the RS uncertainty relation we found, that there can exist a large set of states of the quantum system under considerations, for which the lower bound of the product of the standard deviations of a pair of noncommuting observables, A and B, is zero, and which differ from those described in the literature for the HR uncertainty relation. These states are not eigenstates of either the observable A or B. The correlation function for these observables in such states is equal to zero. We have also shown that the so-called “sum uncertainty relations” also do not provide any information about lower bounds on the standard deviations calculated for these states. We additionally show that the uncertainty principle in its most general form has two faces: One is that it is a lower bound on the product of standard deviations, and the other is that the product of standard deviations is an upper bound on the modulus of the correlation function of a pair of the noncommuting observables in the state under consideration.
We analyze the weak and critical points of various uncertainty relations that follow from the inequalities for the norms of vectors in the Hilbert space of states of a quantum system. There are studied uncertainty relations for sums of standard deviations, for sums of variances, and other relations between standard deviations or variances. The obtained results are compared with the conclusions obtained in similar cases using the standard Heisenberg-Robertson uncertainty relation. We also show that there exists an upper bound on the product of standard deviations that appears in the Heisenberg-Robertson uncertainty relation.
Abstract We report a universal improvement to the standard Robertson–Schrödinger uncertainty relation. Our result shows that the Robertson–Schrödinger lower bound can be supplemented by a new noncommutativity-induced term. This term represents a previously overlooked quantum contribution and becomes more pronounced as the state becomes more mixed. Moreover, it is expressed as the expectation value of a positive observable, namely the squared modulus of the commutator, and therefore preserves the direct, experimentally accessible character of the Robertson–Schrödinger relation. For two-level quantum systems, our relation becomes an exact equality for any state and any pair of observables, thereby ensuring the tightness of the bound in the strongest possible sense. The relation also yields, as a corollary, a complete proof of a general uncertainty bound that had previously been supported only by numerical evidence.
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.
We analyze the Schwarz inequality and its generalizations, as well as inequalities resulting from the Jensen inequality. They are used in quantum theory to derive the Heisenberg-Robertson (HR) and Schroedinger-Robertson (SR) uncertainty relation for two non-commuting observables and their generalizations to three or more non-commuting observables. Jensen's inequality, in turn, is helpful in deriving various the "sum uncertainty relations" for two or more observables. Using these inequalities, we derive various types of generalized uncertainty relations for more than two non--commuting observables and analyze their properties and critical points. We also study the connections between the generalizations of the HR and SR uncertainty relations for two and more observables and the correlations of these observables in the state of the quantum system under study. In this analysis, we pay special attention to the consequences of the generalized SR uncertainty relation for three non--commuting observables on their correlations in a given state of a quantum system and to the connections of this relation with the appropriate correlation matrix, whose matrix elements are the quantum versions of the Pearson coefficient. We show also that the SR uncertainty relation (including the generalized ones) can be written in an equivalent way using these Pearson coefficients.
We analyze general uncertainty relations and we show that there can exist such pairs of non-commuting observables [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] and such vectors that the lower bound for the product of standard deviations [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] calculated for these vectors is zero: [Formula: see text]. We also show that for some pairs of non-commuting observables the sets of vectors for which [Formula: see text] can be complete (total). The Heisenberg, [Formula: see text], and Mandelstam–Tamm (MT), [Formula: see text], time–energy uncertainty relations ([Formula: see text] is the characteristic time for the observable [Formula: see text]) are analyzed too. We show that the interpretation [Formula: see text] for eigenvectors of a Hamiltonian [Formula: see text] does not follow from the rigorous analysis of MT relation. We show also that contrary to the position–momentum uncertainty relation, the validity of the MT relation is limited: It does not hold on complete sets of eigenvectors of [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text].
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.