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Stronger uncertainty relations

Lorenzo Maccone, Arun Kumar Pati

Published Jul 1, 2014• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Heisenberg-Robertson's 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 non-compatible 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.

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Heisenberg-Robertson's 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 non-compatible 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.
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.
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.
The Heisenberg-Robertson uncertainty relation is the hallmark of quantum physics and has been widely investigated. However, it does not capture the concept of incompatible observables because it can be trivial even for incompatible observables. Recently some stronger uncertainty relations relating the sums of variances were proposed. Here we experimentally demonstrate that these stronger multiobservable uncertainty relations are valid in a state-dependent manner and that the lower bound is guaranteed to be nontrivial for multiple observables that are incompatible on the state of the system being measured. We find that the behavior of multiple high-dimensional observables agrees with the predictions of quantum theory. Our experimental results not only foster insight into a fundamental limitation of measurements with multiple observables but also contribute to the study of the precision measurement technology in quantum information processing.
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.
We analyze the uncertainty relation for the sum of variances, which is called, in some papers, the stronger uncertainty relation for all incompatible observables. We show that this uncertainty relation for the sum of variances of the observables A and B calculated for the eigenstate of one of these observables (say of B), contrary to the suggestions presented in some papers, leads to the same results as the Heisenberg–Robertson uncertainty relation; that is, it does not give any bounds on the variance of A.
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.