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Journal of Physics A Mathematical and General

Discrete uncertainty relations

Dorje C. Brody, Bernhard K. Meister

Published Jan 1, 1999• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Generalized uncertainty relations based upon Fourier transforms of both discrete and continuous functions are briefly reviewed. We extend these results in order to establish discrete versions of the angular momentum uncertainty relations, based upon SU (2) transformations. Possible applications in quantum signal processing and computations are briefly discussed.

DOI
10.1088/0305-4470/32/26/310

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Generalized uncertainty relations based upon Fourier transforms of both discrete and continuous functions are briefly reviewed. We extend these results in order to establish discrete versions of the angular momentum uncertainty relations, based upon SU (2) transformations. Possible applications in quantum signal processing and computations are briefly discussed.
We derive an uncertainty relation for two unitary operators which obey a commutation relation of the form UV=e(i phi) VU. Its most important application is to constrain how much a quantum state can be localized simultaneously in two mutually unbiased bases related by a discrete fourier transform. It provides an uncertainty relation which smoothly interpolates between the well-known cases of the Pauli operators in two dimensions and the continuous variables position and momentum. This work also provides an uncertainty relation for modular variables, and could find applications in signal processing. In the finite dimensional case the minimum uncertainty states, discrete analogues of coherent and squeezed states, are minimum energy solutions of Harper's equation, a discrete version of the harmonic oscillator equation.
The conventional Fourier transform has a well-known uncertainty relation that is defined in terms of the first and second moments of both a function and its Fourier transform. It is also well known that Gaussian functions, when translated to an arbitrary centre and supplemented by a linear phase factor, provide a complete set of minimum uncertainty states (MUSs) that exactly achieves the lower bound set by this uncertainty relation. A similarly general set of MUSs and uncertainty relations are derived here for discrete and/or periodic generalizations of the Fourier transform, namely for the discrete Fourier transform and the Fourier series. These extensions require a modified definition for the width of a periodic distribution, and they lead to more complex uncertainty relations that turn out to depend on the centroid location and mean frequency of the distribution. The derivations lead to novel generalizations of Hermite–Gaussian functions and, like Gaussians, the MUSs can play a special role in a range of Fourier applications.
Quantum-mechanical uncertainty relations for position and momentum are expressed in the form of inequalities involving the R\'enyi entropies. The proof of these inequalities requires the use of the exact expression for the (p,q)(p,q)(p,q)-norm of the Fourier transformation derived by Babenko and Beckner. Analogous uncertainty relations are derived for angle and angular momentum and also for a pair of complementary observables in NNN-level systems. All these uncertainty relations become more attractive when expressed in terms of the symmetrized R\'enyi entropies.
Uncertainty relations based on information theory for both discrete and continuous distribution functions are briefly reviewed. We extend these results to account for (differential) Rényi entropy and its related entropy power. This allows us to find a new class of information-theoretic uncertainty relations (ITURs). The potency of such uncertainty relations in quantum mechanics is illustrated with a simple two-energy-level model where they outperform both the usual Robertson–Schrödinger uncertainty relation and Shannon entropy based uncertainty relation. In the continuous case the ensuing entropy power uncertainty relations are discussed in the context of heavy tailed wave functions and Schrödinger cat states. Again, improvement over both the Robertson–Schrödinger uncertainty principle and Shannon ITUR is demonstrated in these cases. Further salient issues such as the proof of a generalized entropy power inequality and a geometric picture of information-theoretic uncertainty relations are also discussed.
To resolve an issue that was raised in our earlier paper in this journal [69, 340–347 (2001)], a direct analog of the standard uncertainty relation is derived for the discrete Fourier transform (DFT). This inequality gives a simple lower bound for the degree of localization of the DFT of any sequence in terms of just the localization of the original sequence. It is also shown that the earlier uncertainty relations for the Fourier transform and the Fourier series can be derived from this new relation by taking appropriate limits. Because the same cannot be said of the others, this new relation is arguably the most fundamental of the three.
The uncertainty relation is introduced by using operators which are not necessarily self-adjoint. In general, the uncertainty (lower) limit is different for different functions. Operators are found that define the second moments and the uncertainty limit for their product such that the limit is the same for functions obtained from each other by applying unitary support-size preserving operators, e.g. by shifting in time and frequency. In this case, for all functions of finite energy the limit is related to the minimum support size in the time-frequency domain. Moreover, it is possible to find the discrete-time counterpart of the classical uncertainty relation for continuous-time functions. The operator calculus presents results from signal analysis in a more standard form extensively used in quantum mechanics.