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Beyond Robertson-Schr\"odinger: A General Uncertainty Relation Unveiling Hidden Noncommutative Trade-offs

Quantum Physics 2026-05-19 v5 Statistical Mechanics High Energy Physics - Theory Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

We report a universal improvement to the standard Robertson--Schr\"odinger uncertainty relation. Our result shows that the Robertson--Schr\"odinger lower bound can be supplemented by a new noncommutativity-induced term. This term represents a previously overlooked quantum contribution and becomes more pronounced as the state becomes more mixed. Moreover, it is expressed as the expectation value of a positive observable, namely the squared modulus of the commutator, and therefore preserves the direct, experimentally accessible character of the Robertson--Schr\"odinger relation. For two-level quantum systems, our relation becomes an \emph{exact equality} for \emph{any} state and \emph{any} pair of observables, thereby ensuring the tightness of the bound in the strongest possible sense. The relation also yields, as a corollary, a complete proof of a general uncertainty bound that had previously been supported only by numerical evidence.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2504.20404,
  title  = {Beyond Robertson-Schr\"odinger: A General Uncertainty Relation Unveiling Hidden Noncommutative Trade-offs},
  author = {Gen Kimura and Aina Mayumi and Hiromichi Ohno and Jaeha Lee and Dariusz Chruściński},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.20404},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

18 pages, Revised the proof of Lemma 2, Added some references and revised the presentation to clarify the physical significance