Position-momentum Uncertainty Relation Research Articles

Uncertainty relations for the relativistic Jackiw-Nair anyon: A first-principles derivation

In this paper we have explicitly computed the position-position and position-momentum (Heisenberg) uncertainty relations for the model of relativistic particles with arbitrary spin, proposed by Jackiw and Nair (Jackiw R. and Nair V. P. Phys. Rev. D, 43 (1991) 1933) as a model for anyon, in a purely quantum mechanical framework. This supports (via Schwarz inequality) the conjecture that anyons live in a 2-dimensional non-commutative space. We have computed the non-trivial uncertainty relation between anyon coordinates, , using the recently constructed anyon wave function (Majhi J. et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 123 (2019) 164801), in the framework of Bialynicki-Birula I. and Bialynicka-Birula Z., New J. Phys., 21 (2019) 07306. We also compute the Heisenberg (position-momentum) uncertainty relation for anyons. Lastly we show that the identical formalism when applied to electrons, yield a trivial position uncertainty relation, consistent with their living in a 3-dimensional commutative space.

Quantum uncertainty: what to teach?

We present a new secondary school teaching method of quantum uncertainties of two-state systems. Intending to be a material teachable in schools, only two-state systems described by real numbers can be considered. An elementary argumentation based on school statistics leads to the identification of the uncertainty of a physical quantity in such systems with the standard deviation of two random variables. We provide a qualitative picture on the state-dependence of the uncertainty, leading to a pictorial representation in the form of four petals of a flower. When considering the product of uncertainty of two essentially different physical quantities we conclude that the general feature: “if the measurement of one of the quantities is certain, the other remains uncertain”, cannot be faithfully expressed by means of an inequality, the product has no lower bound different from zero. The application of techniques used by school materials for teaching quantum physics leads to an exact formula for the state-dependence of the uncertainty valid in any two-state system described by real numbers, in full harmony with the qualitative picture. We compare the two-state case with the celebrated Heisenberg position-momentum uncertainty relation and show that these are both specific facets, but only the Heisenberg relation can be expressed by an inequality. The latter hardly provides any hint on the uncertainties of physical quantities in two-state systems. We conclude that the two-state approach is worth teaching in schools also in relation to the uncertainty relation, even if the Heisenberg relation is not part of the curriculum.

Path Integral Action for a Resonant Detector of Gravitational Waves in the Generalized Uncertainty Principle Framework

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is modified by the introduction of an observer-independent minimal length. In this work, we have considered the resonant gravitational wave detector in the modified uncertainty principle framework, where we have used the position momentum uncertainty relation with a quadratic order correction only. We have then used the path integral approach to calculate an action for the bar detector in the presence of a gravitational wave and then derived the Lagrangian of the system, leading to the equation of motion for the configuration-space position coordinate in one dimension. We then find a perturbative solution for the coordinate of the detector for a circularly polarized gravitational wave, leading to a classical solution of the same for the given initial conditions. Using this classical form of the coordinate of the detector, we finally obtain the classical form of the on-shell action describing the harmonic oscillator–gravitational wave system. Finally, we have obtained the free particle propagator containing the quantum fluctuation term considering gravitational wave interaction.

High Dimensional Atomic States of Hydrogenic Type: Heisenberg-like and Entropic Uncertainty Measures.

High dimensional atomic states play a relevant role in a broad range of quantum fields, ranging from atomic and molecular physics to quantum technologies. The D-dimensional hydrogenic system (i.e., a negatively-charged particle moving around a positively charged core under a Coulomb-like potential) is the main prototype of the physics of multidimensional quantum systems. In this work, we review the leading terms of the Heisenberg-like (radial expectation values) and entropy-like (Rényi, Shannon) uncertainty measures of this system at the limit of high D. They are given in a simple compact way in terms of the space dimensionality, the Coulomb strength and the state’s hyperquantum numbers. The associated multidimensional position–momentum uncertainty relations are also revised and compared with those of other relevant systems.

A complete set of Lorentz-invariant wave packets and modified uncertainty relation

We define a set of fully Lorentz-invariant wave packets and show that it spans the corresponding one-particle Hilbert subspace, and hence the whole Fock space as well, with a manifestly Lorentz-invariant completeness relation (resolution of identity). The position–momentum uncertainty relation for this Lorentz-invariant wave packet deviates from the ordinary Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and reduces to it in the non-relativistic limit.

Uncertainty Relations: Curiosities and Inconsistencies

Analyzing general uncertainty relations one can find that there can exist such pairs of non-commuting observables A and B and such vectors that the lower bound for the product of standard deviations ΔA and ΔB calculated for these vectors is zero: ΔA·ΔB≥0. Here we discuss examples of such cases and some other inconsistencies which can be found performing a rigorous analysis of the uncertainty relations in some special cases. As an illustration of such cases matrices (2×2) and (3×3) and the position–momentum uncertainty relation for a quantum particle in the box are considered. The status of the uncertainty relation in PT–symmetric quantum theory and the problems associated with it are also studied.

Remarks on the uncertainty relations

We analyze general uncertainty relations and we show that there can exist such pairs of non-commuting observables [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] and such vectors that the lower bound for the product of standard deviations [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] calculated for these vectors is zero: [Formula: see text]. We also show that for some pairs of non-commuting observables the sets of vectors for which [Formula: see text] can be complete (total). The Heisenberg, [Formula: see text], and Mandelstam–Tamm (MT), [Formula: see text], time–energy uncertainty relations ([Formula: see text] is the characteristic time for the observable [Formula: see text]) are analyzed too. We show that the interpretation [Formula: see text] for eigenvectors of a Hamiltonian [Formula: see text] does not follow from the rigorous analysis of MT relation. We show also that contrary to the position–momentum uncertainty relation, the validity of the MT relation is limited: It does not hold on complete sets of eigenvectors of [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text].

Microscale Generation of Entangled Photons without Momentum Conservation.

We report, for the first time, the observation of spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) free of phase matching (momentum conservation). We alleviate the need to conserve momentum by exploiting the position-momentum uncertainty relation and using a planar geometry source, a 6 μm thick layer of lithium niobate. Nonphase-matched SPDC opens up a new platform on which to investigate fundamental quantum effects but it also has practical applications. The ultrasmall thickness leads to a frequency spectrum an order of magnitude broader than that of phase-matched SPDC. The strong two-photon correlations are still preserved due to energy conservation. This results in ultrashort temporal correlation widths and huge frequency entanglement. The studies we make here can be considered as the initial steps into the emerging field of nonlinear quantum optics on the microscale and nanoscale.

Critical Look at the Time--Energy Uncertainty Relations

The Heisenberg and Mandelstam-Tamm time-energy uncertainty relations are analyzed. The conlusion resulting from this analysis is that within the Quantum Mechanics of Schr\"{o}dinger and von Neumann, the status of these relations can not be considered as the same as the status of the position-momentum uncertainty relations, which are rigorous. The conclusion is that the time--energy uncertainty relations can not be considered as universally valid.

Atom interferometers with weak-measurement path detectors and their quantum mechanical analysis**Project supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFA 0306200), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11434017), and the Guangdong Innovative and Entrepreneurial Research Team Program, China (Grant No. 2016ZT06C594).

According to the orthodox interpretation of quantum physics, wave-particle duality (WPD) is the intrinsic property of all massive microscopic particles. All gedanken or realistic experiments based on atom interferometers (AI) have so far upheld the principle of WPD, either by the mechanism of the Heisenberg’s position-momentum uncertainty relation or by quantum entanglement. In this paper, we propose and make a systematic quantum mechanical analysis of several schemes of weak-measurement atom interferometer (WM-AI) and compare them with the historical schemes of strong-measurement atom interferometer (SM-AI), such as Einstein’s recoiling slit and Feynman’s light microscope. As the critical part of these WM-AI setups, a weak-measurement path detector (WM-PD) deliberately interacting with the atomic internal electronic quantum states is designed and used to probe the which-path information of the atom, while only inducing negligible perturbation of the atomic center-of-mass motion. Another instrument that is used to directly interact with the atomic center-of-mass while being insensitive to the internal electronic quantum states is used to monitor the atomic center-of-mass interference pattern. Two typical schemes of WM-PD are considered. The first is the micromaser-cavity path detector, which allows us to probe the spontaneously emitted microwave photon from the incoming Rydberg atom in its excited electronic state and record unanimously the which-path information of the atom. The second is the optical-lattice Bragg-grating path detector, which can split the incoming atom beam into two different directions as determined by the internal electronic state and thus encode the which-path information of the atom into the internal states of the atom. We have used standard quantum mechanics to analyze the evolution of the atomic center-of-mass and internal electronic state wave function by directly solving Schrödinger’s equation for the composite atom-electron-photon system in these WM-AIs . We have also compared our analysis with the theoretical and experimental studies that have been presented in the previous literature. The results show that the two sets of instruments can work separately, collectively, and without mutual exclusion to enable simultaneous observation of both wave and particle nature of the atoms to a much higher level than the historical SM-AIs, while avoiding degradation from Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation and quantum entanglement. We have further investigated the space–time evolution of the internal electronic quantum state, as well as the combined atom–detector system and identified the microscopic origin and role of quantum entanglement, as emphasized in numerous previous studies. Based on these physics insights and theoretical analyses, we have proposed several new WM-AI schemes that can help to elucidate the puzzling physics of the WPD of the atoms. The principle of WM-AI scheme and quantum mechanical analyses made in this work can be directly extended to examine the principle of WPD for other massive particles.

Dynamics of a deformed atom cavity field system in presence of a Kerr-like medium

In this paper, we investigate the interaction between a vee-type three-level atom and a single mode of the electromagnetic field in the presence of a nonlinear Kerr-like medium and an intensity-dependent coupling. We have elucidated the system by a nonlinear Hamiltonian constructed from the standard Jaynes–Cummings model by deforming the field operators and adding some nonlinear terms. Using the initial conditions that the atom is prepared in an excited state and the field is in a coherent state, the state vector of the entire system is determined analytically. The time evolution of nonclassical properties such as Mandel Q, quantum entanglement and position-momentum uncertainty relation (squeezing) of the field are investigated. The quasiprobability distributions are also computed for the resultant state. The effects of the detuning parameters, generalized Kerr medium and intensity-dependent coupling on the previous nonclassicality signs are analysed, in detail.

Entropic uncertainty relation and revival structure of quantum wave packets

We consider a wave packet in the one-dimensional infinite square well formed by a combination of ground state and the first few excited states, and identify three different methods to study its time development. The first method proceeds by monitoring the temporal evolution of the so-called autocorrelation function while the second one relies on the behavior of standard deviation based Heisenberg’s position-momentum uncertainty relation as a function of time. The third method of our interest makes use of the time variation of the Shannon entropy sum or the so-called entropic uncertainty relation. The chosen form of the wave packet allowed us to study its revivals, super-revivals and fractional revivals by using analytic methods, the inevitable numerical routine being invoked at the last stage of the game. We found that, in general, the uncertainty-based approaches furnish more detailed information on the revival structure of wave packets than those provided by the autocorrelation function. The results of the entropic uncertainty relation, however, appear to be more accurate than the corresponding predictions of the standard deviation based uncertainty relation.

Dynamics of entanglement and uncertainty relation in coupled harmonic oscillator system: exact results

The dynamics of entanglement and uncertainty relation is explored by solving the time-dependent Schrodinger equation for coupled harmonic oscillator system analytically when the angular frequencies and coupling constant are arbitrarily time dependent. We derive the spectral and Schmidt decompositions for vacuum solution. Using the decompositions, we derive the analytical expressions for von Neumann and Renyi entropies. Making use of Wigner distribution function defined in phase space, we derive the time dependence of position–momentum uncertainty relations. To show the dynamics of entanglement and uncertainty relation graphically, we introduce two toy models and one realistic quenched model. While the dynamics can be conjectured by simple consideration in the toy models, the dynamics in the realistic quenched model is somewhat different from that in the toy models. In particular, the dynamics of entanglement exhibits similar pattern to dynamics of uncertainty parameter in the realistic quenched model.

Radial position-momentum uncertainties for the infinite circular well and Fisher entropy

We show how the product of the radial position and momentum uncertainties can be obtained analytically for the infinite circular well potential. Some interesting features are found. First, the uncertainty Δr increases with the radius R and the quantum number n, the n-th root of the Bessel function. The variation of the Δr is almost independent of the quantum number n for n>4 and it will arrive to a constant for a large n, say n>4. Second, we find that the relative dispersion Δr/〈r〉 is independent of the radius R. Moreover, the relative dispersion increases with the quantum number n but decreases with the azimuthal quantum number m. Third, the momentum uncertainty Δp decreases with the radius R and increases with the quantum numbers m>1 and n. Fourth, the product ΔrΔpr of the position-momentum uncertainty relations is independent of the radius R and increases with the quantum numbers m and n. Finally, we present the analytical expression for the Fisher entropy. Notice that the Fisher entropy decreases with the radius R and it increases with the quantum numbers m>0 and n. Also, we find that the Cramer–Rao uncertainty relation is satisfied and it increases with the quantum numbers m>0 and n, too.

Isospectral Hamiltonian for position-dependent mass for an arbitrary quantum system and coherent states

By means of the unitary transformation, a new way for discussing the ordering prescription of the Schrödinger equation with a position-dependent mass (PDM) for isospectral Hamiltonian operators is presented. We show that the ambiguity parameter choices in the kinetic part of the Hamiltonian can be explained through an exact SUSY QM symmetry as well as a consequence of an accidental symmetry under the Z2 action. By making use of the unitary transformation, we construct coherent states for a family of PDM isospectral Hamiltonians from a suitable choice of ladder operators. We show that these states preserve the usual structure of Klauder-Perelomov’s states and thus saturate and minimize the position-momentum uncertainty relation (PMUR) under some special restrictions. We show that PMUR properties can be used to determine the sign of the superpotential.

Heisenberg and Entropic Uncertainty Measures for Large-Dimensional Harmonic Systems

The D-dimensional harmonic system (i.e., a particle moving under the action of a quadratic potential) is, together with the hydrogenic system, the main prototype of the physics of multidimensional quantum systems. In this work, we rigorously determine the leading term of the Heisenberg-like and entropy-like uncertainty measures of this system as given by the radial expectation values and the Rényi entropies, respectively, at the limit of large D. The associated multidimensional position-momentum uncertainty relations are discussed, showing that they saturate the corresponding general ones. A conjecture about the Shannon-like uncertainty relation is given, and an interesting phenomenon is observed: the Heisenberg-like and Rényi-entropy-based equality-type uncertainty relations for all of the D-dimensional harmonic oscillator states in the pseudoclassical ( D → ∞ ) limit are the same as the corresponding ones for the hydrogenic systems, despite the so different character of the oscillator and Coulomb potentials.

Exact solutions and coherent states for a generalized potential

Exact solutions of the vibrational Schrödinger equation for a generalized potential energy function hbox {V(R)}=hbox {C}_{0}(mathrm{{R}-mathrm {R}}_{mathrm{e}})^{2}/[hbox {aR},+,(mathrm{{b}-mathrm {a}})hbox {R}_{mathrm{e}}]^{2} are obtained. It includes those of Dunham, Ogilvie and Simons–Parr–Finlan potentials as special cases corresponding to b = 1, a = 0, 1/2, 1, respectively. The analytical wave functions derived are useful to test the quality of numerical methods or to perform perturbative or variational calculations for the problems that cannot be solved exactly. Coherent states for generalized potential, which minimize the position–momentum uncertainty relation are also constructed.

Position-momentum uncertainty relations in the presence of quantum memory

A prominent formulation of the uncertainty principle identifies the fundamental quantum feature that no particle may be prepared with certain outcomes for both position and momentum measurements. Often the statistical uncertainties are thereby measured in terms of entropies providing a clear operational interpretation in information theory and cryptography. Recently, entropic uncertainty relations have been used to show that the uncertainty can be reduced in the presence of entanglement and to prove security of quantum cryptographic tasks. However, much of this recent progress has been focused on observables with only a finite number of outcomes not including Heisenberg’s original setting of position and momentum observables. Here, we show entropic uncertainty relations for general observables with discrete but infinite or continuous spectrum that take into account the power of an entangled observer. As an illustration, we evaluate the uncertainty relations for position and momentum measurements, which is operationally significant in that it implies security of a quantum key distribution scheme based on homodyne detection of squeezed Gaussian states.

Localization of relativistic particles and uncertainty relations

Localization of relativistic particles and their position-momentum uncertainty relations are not yet fully understood. We discuss two schemes of photon localization that are based on the energy density. One scheme produces a positive operator-valued measure for localization. It coincides with the number density operator and reproduces an effective $3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}3$ polarization density matrix. Another scheme results in a probability distribution that is conditioned on the detection. In both schemes the uncertainty relations for transversal position and momentum approach the Heisenberg bound $\ensuremath{\Delta}p\ensuremath{\Delta}z=\frac{1}{2}\ensuremath{\hbar}$.

The construction of ladder operators and coherent states for the Wei Hua anharmonic oscillator using the supersymmetric quantum mechanics

The unknown ladder operators for the Wei Hua potential have been derived within the algebraic approach. The method is extended to include the rotating oscillator. The annihilation and creation operators have been obtained with the use of the factorization method. The coherent states for the Wei Hua anharmonic oscillator, which are eigenstates of the annihilation operator and minimize the generalized position-momentum uncertainty relation, are constructed in the framework of the supersymmetric quantum mechanics. The constructed ladder operators can be applied to compute the matrix elements in theoretical spectroscopy due to the fact that this potential is widely used to a proper description the large-amplitude vibrations of diatomic molecules.