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Physical Review A

Discrete Wigner function and quantum-state tomography

Ulf Leonhardt

Published May 1, 1996• 214 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The theory of discrete Wigner functions and of discrete quantum-state tomography [U. Leonhardt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 4101 (1995)] is studied in more detail guided by the picture of precession tomography. Odd- and even-dimensional systems (angular momenta and spins, bosons, and fermions) are considered separately. Relations between simple number theory and the quantum mechanics of finite-dimensional systems are pointed out. In particular, the multicomplementarity of the precession states distinguishes prime dimensions from composite ones. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.53.2998

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The theory of discrete Wigner functions and of discrete quantum-state tomography [U. Leonhardt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 4101 (1995)] is studied in more detail guided by the picture of precession tomography. Odd- and even-dimensional systems (angular momenta and spins, bosons, and fermions) are considered separately. Relations between simple number theory and the quantum mechanics of finite-dimensional systems are pointed out. In particular, the multicomplementarity of the precession states distinguishes prime dimensions from composite ones. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
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A discussion of discrete Wigner functions in phase space related to mutually unbiased bases is presented. This approach requires mathematical assumptions which limits it to systems with density matrices defined on complex Hilbert spaces of dimension pn where p is a prime number. With this limitation it is possible to define a phase space and Wigner functions in close analogy to the continuous case. That is, we use a phase space that is a direct sum of n two-dimensional vector spaces each containing p2 points. This is in contrast to the more usual choice of a two-dimensional phase space containing p2n points. A useful aspect of this approach is that we can relate complete separability of density matrices and their Wigner functions in a natural way. We discuss this in detail for bipartite systems and present the generalization to arbitrary numbers of subsystems when p is odd. Special attention is required for two qubits (p=2) and our technique fails to establish the separability property for more than two qubits.
A discussion of discrete Wigner functions in phase space related to mutually unbiased bases is presented. This approach requires mathematical assumptions, which limits it to systems with density matrices defined on complex Hilbert spaces of dimension p n where p is a prime number. With this limitation, it is possible to define a phase space and Wigner functions in close analogy to the continuous case. That is, we use a phase space that is a direct sum of n two-dimensional vector spaces each containing p 2 points. This is in contrast to the more usual choice of a two-dimensional phase space containing p 2 n points. A useful aspect of this approach is that we can relate complete separability of density matrices and their Wigner functions in a natural way. We discuss this in detail for bipartite systems and present the generalization to arbitrary numbers of subsystems when p is odd. Special attention is required for two qubits ( p = 2) and our technique fails to establish the separability property for more than two qubits. Finally, we give a brief discussion of Hamiltonian dynamics in the language developed in the paper.
We study different techniques that allow us to gain complete knowledge about an unknown quantum state, e.g. to perform full tomography of this state. We focus on two apparently simple cases, full tomography of one and two qubit systems. We analyze and compare those techniques according to two figures of merit. Our first criterion is the minimisation of the redundancy of the data acquired during the tomographic process. In the case of two-qubits tomography, we also analyze this process from the point of view of factorisability, so to say we analyze the possibility to realise the tomographic process through local operations and classical communications between local observers. This brings us naturally to study the possibility to factorize the (discrete) Wigner distribution of a composite system into the product of local Wigner distributions. The discrete Heisenberg-Weyl group is an essential ingredient of our approach. Possible extensions of our results to higher dimensions are discussed in the last section and in the conclusions.
Abstract In this paper the problem of tomographic reconstruction of states is investigated within the so-called Schwinger’s picture of quantum mechanics in which a groupoid is associated with every quantum system. The attention is focussed on spin tomography: in this context the groupoid of interest is the groupoid of pairs over a finite set. In a nutshell, this groupoid is made up of transitions between all possible pairs of outcomes belonging to a finite set. In addition, these transitions possess a partial composition rule, generalizing the notion of groups. The main goal of the paper consists in providing a reconstruction formula for states on the groupoid-algebra associated with the observables of the system. Using the group of bisections of this groupoid, which are special subsets in one-to-one correspondence with the outcomes, a frame is defined and it is used to prove the validity of the tomographic reconstruction. The special case of the set of outcomes being the set of integers modulo n, with n odd prime, is considered in detail. In this case the subgroup of discrete affine linear transformations, whose graphs are linear subspaces of the groupoid, provides a quorum in close analogy with the continuous case.