Negativity Bounds for Weyl-Heisenberg Quasiprobability Representations

The appearance of negative terms in quasiprobability representations of quantum theory is known to be inevitable, and, due to its equivalence with the onset of contextuality, of central interest in quantum computation and information. Until recently, however, nothing has been known about how much negativity is necessary in a quasiprobability representation. Zhu proved that the upper and lower bounds with respect to one type of negativity measure are saturated by quasiprobability representations which are in one-to-one correspondence with the elusive symmetric informationally complete quantum measurements (SICs). We define a family of negativity measures which includes Zhu's as a special case and consider another member of the family which we call "sum negativity." We prove a sufficient condition for local maxima in sum negativity and find exact global maxima in dimensions $3$ and $4$. Notably, we find that Zhu's result on the SICs does not generally extend to sum negativity, although the analogous result does hold in dimension $4$. Finally, the Hoggar lines in dimension $8$ make an appearance in a conjecture on sum negativity.Comment: 21 pages. v2: journal version, added reference

A Short Note on the Frame Set of Odd Functions

In this work we derive a simple argument which shows that Gabor systems consisting of odd functions of $d$ variables and symplectic lattices of density $2^d$ cannot constitute a Gabor frame. In the 1--dimensional, separable case, this is a special case of a result proved by Lyubarskii and Nes, however, we use a different approach in this work exploiting the algebraic relation between the ambiguity function and the Wigner distribution as well as their relation given by the (symplectic) Fourier transform. Also, we do not need the assumption that the lattice is separable and, hence, new restrictions are added to the full frame set of odd functions.Comment: accepted: Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society; 12 pages; Version 3 makes use of symmetric time-frequency shifts. In this case the appearing phase factors are easier to handle. Also, the main result is extended to higher dimensions. [In Version 2 a mistake in the assumptions was corrected. The windows should be chosen from Feichtinger's algebra rather than from the Hilbert space L2.

Interpolation in Wavelet Spaces and the HRT-Conjecture

We investigate the wavelet spaces $\mathcal{W}_{g}(\mathcal{H}_{\pi})\subset L^{2}(G)$ arising from square integrable representations $\pi:G \to \mathcal{U}(\mathcal{H}_{\pi})$ of a locally compact group $G$. We show that the wavelet spaces are rigid in the sense that non-trivial intersection between them imposes strong conditions. Moreover, we use this to derive consequences for wavelet transforms related to convexity and functions of positive type. Motivated by the reproducing kernel Hilbert space structure of wavelet spaces we examine an interpolation problem. In the setting of time-frequency analysis, this problem turns out to be equivalent to the HRT-Conjecture. Finally, we consider the problem of whether all the wavelet spaces $\mathcal{W}_{g}(\mathcal{H}_{\pi})$ of a locally compact group $G$ collectively exhaust the ambient space $L^{2}(G)$. We show that the answer is affirmative for compact groups, while negative for the reduced Heisenberg group.Comment: Added a relevant citation and made minor modifications to the expositio

SIC~POVMs and Clifford groups in prime dimensions

We show that in prime dimensions not equal to three, each group covariant symmetric informationally complete positive operator valued measure (SIC~POVM) is covariant with respect to a unique Heisenberg--Weyl (HW) group. Moreover, the symmetry group of the SIC~POVM is a subgroup of the Clifford group. Hence, two SIC~POVMs covariant with respect to the HW group are unitarily or antiunitarily equivalent if and only if they are on the same orbit of the extended Clifford group. In dimension three, each group covariant SIC~POVM may be covariant with respect to three or nine HW groups, and the symmetry group of the SIC~POVM is a subgroup of at least one of the Clifford groups of these HW groups respectively. There may exist two or three orbits of equivalent SIC~POVMs for each group covariant SIC~POVM, depending on the order of its symmetry group. We then establish a complete equivalence relation among group covariant SIC~POVMs in dimension three, and classify inequivalent ones according to the geometric phases associated with fiducial vectors. Finally, we uncover additional SIC~POVMs by regrouping of the fiducial vectors from different SIC~POVMs which may or may not be on the same orbit of the extended Clifford group.Comment: 30 pages, 1 figure, section 4 revised and extended, published in J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 43, 305305 (2010

Sampling of operators

Sampling and reconstruction of functions is a central tool in science. A key result is given by the sampling theorem for bandlimited functions attributed to Whittaker, Shannon, Nyquist, and Kotelnikov. We develop an analogous sampling theory for operators which we call bandlimited if their Kohn-Nirenberg symbols are bandlimited. We prove sampling theorems for such operators and show that they are extensions of the classical sampling theorem