Abstract

Indeterminacy associated with the probing of a quantum state is commonly expressed through spectral distances (metric) featured in the outcomes of repeated experiments. Here, we express it as an effective amount (measure) of distinct outcomes instead. The resulting μ-uncertainties are described by the effective number theory whose central result, the existence of a minimal amount, leads to a well-defined notion of intrinsic irremovable uncertainty. We derive μ-uncertainty formulas for arbitrary set of commuting operators, including the cases with continuous spectra. The associated entropy-like characteristics, the μ-entropies, convey how many degrees of freedom are effectively involved in a given measurement process. In order to construct quantum μ-entropies, we are led to quantum effective numbers designed to count independent, mutually orthogonal states effectively comprising a density matrix. This concept is basis-independent and leads to a measure-based characterization of entanglement.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-12-2021

Notes/Citation Information

Published in Quantum Reports, v. 3, issue 3.

© 2021 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.3390/quantum3030035

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