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Birkhäuser Basel eBooks

Uncertainty Principle, Phase Space Ellipsoids and Weyl Calculus

Maurice A. de Gosson

Published Jan 1, 2006• 13 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We state a precise form of the uncertainty principle in terms of phase space ellipsoids, which we then express in terms of the symplectic capacity of phase space ellipsoids. We apply our approach to the study of the positivity of the Wigner transform of a pure quantum state, and of that of the Weyl operator associated to the average of a positive symbol over a phase space ellipsoid.

DOI
10.1007/3-7643-7514-0_9

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We state a precise form of the uncertainty principle in terms of phase space ellipsoids, which we then express in terms of the symplectic capacity of phase space ellipsoids. We apply our approach to the study of the positivity of the Wigner transform of a pure quantum state, and of that of the Weyl operator associated to the average of a positive symbol over a phase space ellipsoid.
We extend Hardy's uncertainty principle for a square integrable function and its Fourier transform to the multidimensional case using a symplectic diagonalization. We use this extension to show that Hardy's uncertainty principle is equivalent to a statement on the Wigner distribution of the function. We give a geometric interpretation of our results in terms of the notion of symplectic capacity of an ellipsoid. Furthermore, we show that Hardy's uncertainty principle is valid for a general Lagrangian frame of the phase space. Finally, we discuss an extension of Hardy's theorem for the Wigner distribution for exponentials with convex exponents.
Abstract We investigate properties of the covariance matrix in the framework of non-commutative quantum mechanics for an one-parameter family of transformations between the familiar Heisenberg–Weyl algebra and a particular extension of it. Employing as a measure of the Robertson–Schrödinger uncertainty principle the linear symplectic capacity of the Weyl ellipsoid (and its dual), we determine its corresponding bounds. Inequalities between the capacities for non-commutative phase-spaces are established. We also present a constructive example based on a simple model to justify our theoretical predictions.
We derive Heisenberg uncertainty principles for pairs of Linear Canonical Transforms of a given function, by resorting to the fact that these transforms are just metaplectic operators associated with free symplectic matrices. The results obtained synthesize and generalize previous results found in the literature, because they apply to all signals, in arbitrary dimension and any metaplectic operator (which includes Linear Canonical Transforms as particular cases). Moreover, we also obtain a generalization of the Robertson-Schrödinger uncertainty principle for Linear Canonical Transforms. We also propose a new quadratic phase-space distribution, which represents a signal along two intermediate directions in the time-frequency plane. The marginal distributions are always non-negative and permit a simple interpretation in terms of the Radon transform. We also give a geometric interpretation of this quadratic phase-space representation as a Wigner distribution obtained upon Weyl quantization on a non-standard symplectic vector space. Finally, we derive the multidimensional version of the Hardy uncertainty principle for metaplectic operators and the Paley-Wiener theorem for Linear Canonical Transforms.
In the context of the Wigner–Weyl phase space formulation of quantum mechanics, a version of the uncertainty relations invariant under affine canonical transformations is derived. For a fixed Wigner distribution function possessing a finite covariance, ‘‘directions’’ of minimal uncertainty are found. The geometry of the Wigner ellipsoid and its Legendre transform, the dual Wigner ellipsoid, both of which are associated with the same covariance, is discussed. The results obtained are generalizations of the well-known fact that, for one degree of freedom, the area of the Wigner ellipse must be of order ℏ or larger. Instead of area, which is an invariant only when n=1, these results involve Poincaré invariants of certain curves and surfaces.