Exact uncertainty approach in quantum mechanics and quantum gravity

The assumption that an ensemble of classical particles is subject to nonclassical momentum fluctuations, with the fluctuation uncertainty fully determined by the position uncertainty, has been shown to lead from the classical equations of motion to the Schroedinger equation. This 'exact uncertainty' approach may be generalised to ensembles of gravitational fields, where nonclassical fluctuations are added to the field momentum densities, of a magnitude determined by the uncertainty in the metric tensor components. In this way one obtains the Wheeler-DeWitt equation of quantum gravity, with the added bonus of a uniquely specified operator ordering. No a priori assumptions are required concerning the existence of wavefunctions, Hilbert spaces, Planck's constant, linear operators, etc. Thus this approach has greater transparency than the usual canonical approach, particularly in regard to the connections between quantum and classical ensembles. Conceptual foundations and advantages are emphasised.Comment: Latex, 14 pages; plenary talk presented at the 4th Australasian Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (Melbourne, January 7-9, 2004); Proceedings to appear in GR

Entropic Heisenberg limits and uncertainty relations from the Holevo information bound

Strong and general entropic and geometric Heisenberg limits are obtained, for estimates of multiparameter unitary displacements in quantum metrology, such as the estimation of a magnetic field from the induced rotation of a probe state in three dimensions. A key ingredient is the Holevo bound on the Shannon mutual information of a quantum communication channel. This leads to a Bayesian bound on performance, in terms of the prior distribution of the displacement and the asymmetry of the input probe state with respect to the displacement group. A geometric measure of performance related to entropy is proposed for general parameter estimation. It is also shown how strong entropic uncertainty relations for mutually unbiased observables, such as number and phase, position and momentum, energy and time, and orthogonal spin-1/2 directions, can be obtained from elementary applications of Holevo's bound. A geometric interpretation of results is emphasised, in terms of the 'volumes' of quantum and classical statistical ensembles.Comment: Submitted to JPA special issue "Shannon's Information Theory 70 years on: applications in classical and quantum physics". v2: shortened, minor corrections and improvement