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Quantum Reality and Measurement: A Quantum Logical Approach
The recently established universal uncertainty principle revealed that two
nowhere commuting observables can be measured simultaneously in some state,
whereas they have no joint probability distribution in any state. Thus, one
measuring apparatus can simultaneously measure two observables that have no
simultaneous reality. In order to reconcile this discrepancy, an approach based
on quantum logic is proposed to establish the relation between quantum reality
and measurement. We provide a language speaking of values of observables
independent of measurement based on quantum logic and we construct in this
language the state-dependent notions of joint determinateness, value identity,
and simultaneous measurability. This naturally provides a contextual
interpretation, in which we can safely claim such a statement that one
measuring apparatus measures one observable in one context and simultaneously
it measures another nowhere commuting observable in another incompatible
context.Comment: 16 pages, Latex. Presented at the Conference "Quantum Theory:
Reconsideration of Foundations, 5 (QTRF5)," Vaxjo, Sweden, 15 June 2009. To
appear in Foundations of Physics
Universal Uncertainty Principle in the Measurement Operator Formalism
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle has been understood to set a limitation on
measurements; however, the long-standing mathematical formulation established
by Heisenberg, Kennard, and Robertson does not allow such an interpretation.
Recently, a new relation was found to give a universally valid relation between
noise and disturbance in general quantum measurements, and it has become clear
that the new relation plays a role of the first principle to derive various
quantum limits on measurement and information processing in a unified
treatment. This paper examines the above development on the noise-disturbance
uncertainty principle in the model-independent approach based on the
measurement operator formalism, which is widely accepted to describe a class of
generalized measurements in the field of quantum information. We obtain
explicit formulas for the noise and disturbance of measurements given by the
measurement operators, and show that projective measurements do not satisfy the
Heisenberg-type noise-disturbance relation that is typical in the gamma-ray
microscope thought experiments. We also show that the disturbance on a Pauli
operator of a projective measurement of another Pauli operator constantly
equals the square root of 2, and examine how this measurement violates the
Heisenberg-type relation but satisfies the new noise-disturbance relation.Comment: 11 pages. Based on the author's invited talk at the 9th International
Conference on Squeezed States and Uncertainty Relations (ICSSUR'2005),
Besancon, France, May 2-6, 200
Portable reflectance spectrometer
A portable reflectance spectrometer is disclosed. The spectrometer essentially includes an optical unit and an electronic recording unit. The optical unit includes a pair of thermoelectrically-cooled detectors, for detecting total radiance and selected radiance projected through a circular variable filter wheel, and is capable of operating to provide spectral data in the range 0.4 to 2.5 micrometers without requiring coventional substitution of filter elements. The electronic recording unit includes power supplies, amplifiers, and digital recording electronics designed to permit recordation of data on tape casettes. Both the optical unit and electronic recording unit are packaged to be manually portable
Conservation laws, uncertainty relations, and quantum limits of measurements
The uncertainty relation between the noise operator and the conserved
quantity leads to a bound for the accuracy of general measurements. The bound
extends the assertion by Wigner, Araki, and Yanase that conservation laws limit
the accuracy of ``repeatable'', or ``nondisturbing'', measurements to general
measurements, and improves the one previously obtained by Yanase for spin
measurements. The bound also sets an obstacle to making a small quantum
computer.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, to appear in PR
Instruments and channels in quantum information theory
While a positive operator valued measure gives the probabilities in a quantum
measurement, an instrument gives both the probabilities and the a posteriori
states. By interpreting the instrument as a quantum channel and by using the
typical inequalities for the quantum and classical relative entropies, many
bounds on the classical information extracted in a quantum measurement, of the
type of Holevo's bound, are obtained in a unified manner.Comment: 12 pages, revtex
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