No Arabic abstract
We explore the different meanings of quantum uncertainty contained in Heisenbergs seminal paper from 1927, and also some of the precise definitions that were explored later. We recount the controversy about Anschaulichkeit, visualizability of the theory, which Heisenberg claims to resolve. Moreover, we consider Heisenbergs programme of operational analysis of concepts, in which he sees himself as following Einstein. Heisenbergs work is marked by the tensions between semiclassical arguments and the emerging modern quantum theory, between intuition and rigour, and between shaky arguments and overarching claims. Nevertheless, the main message can be taken into the new quantum theory, and can be brought into the form of general theorems. They come in two kinds, not distinguished by Heisenberg. These are, on one hand, constraints on preparations, like the usual textbook uncertainty relation, and, on the other, constraints on joint measurability, including trade-offs between accuracy and disturbance.
Sir Peter Knight is a pioneer in quantum optics which has now grown to an important branch of modern physics to study the foundations and applications of quantum physics. He is leading an effort to develop new technologies from quantum mechanics. In this collection of essays, we recall the time we were working with him as a postdoc or a PhD student and look at how the time with him has influenced our research.
We give a conceptually simple proof of nonlocality using only the perfect correlations between results of measurements on distant systems discussed by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen---correlations that EPR thought proved the incompleteness of quantum mechanics. Our argument relies on an extension of EPR by Schrodinger.
Using the latest observational data we obtain a lower bound on the initial value of the quintessence field in thawing quintessence models of dark energy. For potentials of the form V(phi) phi^{pm2} we find that the initial value |phi_i|>7x10^{18}gev. We then relate phi_i to the duration of inflation by assuming that the initial value of the quintessence field is determined by quantum fluctuations of the quintessence field during inflation. From the lower bound on $phi_i$ we obtain a lower bound on the number of e-foldings of inflation, namely, N>2x10^{11}. We obtain similar bounds for other power law potentials for which too we obtain |phi_{i}|>O(M_{P}.
Reports on experiments recently performed in Vienna [Erhard et al, Nature Phys. 8, 185 (2012)] and Toronto [Rozema et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 100404 (2012)] include claims of a violation of Heisenbergs error-disturbance relation. In contrast, we have presented and proven a Heisenberg-type relation for joint measurements of position and momentum [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 160405 (2013)]. To resolve the apparent conflict, we formulate here a new general trade-off relation for errors in qubit measurements, using the same concepts as we did in the position-momentum case. We show that the combined errors in an approximate joint measurement of a pair of +/-1 valued observables A,B are tightly bounded from below by a quantity that measures the degree of incompatibility of A and B. The claim of a violation of Heisenberg is shown to fail as it is based on unsuitable measures of error and disturbance. Finally we show how the experiments mentioned may directly be used to test our error inequality.
We prove a double-inequality for the product of uncertainties for position and momentum of bound states for 1D quantum mechanical systems in the semiclassical limit.