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Quantum Reports

Variance-Based Uncertainty Relations: A Concise Review of Inequalities Discovered Since 1927

V. V. Dodonov

Published Aug 5, 2025• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A brief review of various existing mathematical formulations of the uncertainty relations in quantum mechanics, containing variances of two or more non-commuting operators, is given. In particular, inequalities for the products of higher-order moments of a coordinate and a momentum are considered, as well as inequalities making the uncertainty relations more accurate when additional information about a quantum system is available (for example, the correlation coefficient or the degree of mixing of a quantum state characterized by the trace of the squared statistical operator). The special cases of two, three, and four operators are discussed in detail.

DOI
10.3390/quantum7030034

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A brief review of various existing mathematical formulations of the uncertainty relations in quantum mechanics, containing variances of two or more non-commuting operators, is given. In particular, inequalities for the products of higher-order moments of a coordinate and a momentum are considered, as well as inequalities making the uncertainty relations more accurate when additional information about a quantum system is available (for example, the correlation coefficient or the degree of mixing of a quantum state characterized by the trace of the squared statistical operator). The special cases of two, three, and four operators are discussed in detail.
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.
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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.
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.
We analyze the Schwarz inequality and its generalizations, as well as inequalities resulting from the Jensen inequality. They are used in quantum theory to derive the Heisenberg-Robertson (HR) and Schroedinger-Robertson (SR) uncertainty relation for two non-commuting observables and their generalizations to three or more non-commuting observables. Jensen's inequality, in turn, is helpful in deriving various the "sum uncertainty relations" for two or more observables. Using these inequalities, we derive various types of generalized uncertainty relations for more than two non--commuting observables and analyze their properties and critical points. We also study the connections between the generalizations of the HR and SR uncertainty relations for two and more observables and the correlations of these observables in the state of the quantum system under study. In this analysis, we pay special attention to the consequences of the generalized SR uncertainty relation for three non--commuting observables on their correlations in a given state of a quantum system and to the connections of this relation with the appropriate correlation matrix, whose matrix elements are the quantum versions of the Pearson coefficient. We show also that the SR uncertainty relation (including the generalized ones) can be written in an equivalent way using these Pearson coefficients.