English

Classicality of spin states

Quantum Physics 2010-06-23 v1

Abstract

We extend the concept of classicality in quantum optics to spin states. We call a state ``classical'' if its density matrix can be decomposed as a weighted sum of angular momentum coherent states with positive weights. Classical spin states form a convex set C, which we fully characterize for a spin-1/2 and a spin-1. For arbitrary spin, we provide ``non-classicality witnesses''. For bipartite systems, C forms a subset of all separable states. A state of two spins-1/2 belongs to C if and only if it is separable, whereas for a spin-1/2 coupled to a spin-1, there are separable states which do not belong to C. We show that in general the question whether a state is in C can be answered by a linear programming algorithm.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0805.2592,
  title  = {Classicality of spin states},
  author = {Olivier Giraud and Petr Braun and Daniel Braun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0805.2592},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

9 pages revtex, 1 figure eps; includes tcilatex.tex

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:41:35.434Z