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IntechOpen eBooks

Uncertainty Relations

Kenjiro Yanagi

Published May 6, 2020• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Uncertainty relations are inequalities representing the impossibility of simultaneous measurement in quantum mechanics. The most well-known uncertainty relations were presented by Heisenberg and Schrödinger. In this chapter, we generalize and extend them to produce several types of uncertainty relations.
DOI
10.5772/intechopen.92137

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In the present article, we discuss two types of uncertainty relations in Quantum Mechanics–multiplicative and additive inequalities for two canonical observables. The multiplicative uncertainty relation was discovered by Heisenberg. Few years later (1930) Erwin Schrödinger has generalized and made it more precise than the original. The additive uncertainty relation is based on the three independent statistical moments in Quantum Mechanics–Cov(q,p), Var(q) and Var(p). We discuss the existing symmetry of both types of relations and applicability of the additive form for the estimation of the total error.
A concise review of various mathematical formulations of the uncertainty relations in quantum mechanics discovered since 1927 is given. Besides the traditional Heisenberg inequality, the modifications made by Schrödinger and Robertson, as well as generalizations to sets of several noncommuting operators, are considered. The "entropic" inequalities and "local" uncertainty relations, together with inequalities which connect the so-called total width and the mean peak width of a wave function, are discussed. Inequalities for the products of higher order moments of the coordinate and momentum are presented. Inequalities making the uncertainty relations more accurate when the "purity" of a quantum state is fixed are demonstrated. Diverse formulations of the energy-time uncertainty relations are considered.
In the present article, we discuss two types of uncertainty relations in Quantum Mechanics–multiplicative and additive inequalities for two canonical observables. The multiplicative uncertainty relation was discovered by Heisenberg. Few years later (1930) Erwin Schrödinger has generalized and made it more precise than the original. The additive uncertainty relation is based on the three independent statistical moments in Quantum Mechanics–Cov(q,p), Var(q) and Var(p). We discuss the existing symmetry of both types of relations and applicability of the additive form for the estimation of the total error.
Uncertainty relations play a central role in quantum mechanics. Entropic uncertainty relations in particular have gained significant importance within quantum information, providing the foundation for the security of many quantum cryptographic protocols. Yet, rather little is known about entropic uncertainty relations with more than two measurement settings. In this note we review known results and open questions. The uncertainty principle is one of the fundamental ideas of quantum mechanics. Since Heisenberg’s uncertainty relations for canonically conjugate variables, they have been one of the most prominent examples of how quantum mechanics differs from the classical world (Heisenberg, 1927). Uncertainty relations today are probably best known in the form given by (Robertson, 1929), who extended Heisenberg’s result to two arbitrary observables A and B. Robertson’s relation states that if we prepare many copies of the state |ψ〉, and measure each copy individually using either A or B, we have
Recently, Maccone and Pati [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 113}, 260401 (2014)] derived few inequalities among variances of incompatible operators which they called stronger uncertainty relations, stronger than Heisenberg-Robertson or Schrodinger uncertainty relations. Here we generalize their study to get infinite number of such inequalities and propose that only one of them may be the correct uncertainty relation between incompatible operators. We get back well known uncertainty relations of Heisenberg-Robertson and Schrodinger under certain limits. We also reexamine the conclusions of Maccone and Pati and comment on their work.