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 measure complete and continuous Wigner functions of a two-level cesium atom in both a nearly pure state and highly mixed states. We apply the method [T. Tilma et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 180401 (2016)] of strictly constructing continuous Wigner functions for qubit or spin systems. We find that the Wigner function of all pure states of a qubit has negative regions and the negativity completely vanishes when the purity of an arbitrary mixed state is less than
32. We experimentally demonstrate these findings using a single cesium atom confined in an optical dipole trap, which undergoes a nearly pure dephasing process. Our method can be applied straightforwardly to multi-atom systems for measuring the Wigner function of their collective spin state.