English

Continuous majorization in quantum phase space for Wigner-positive states and proposals for Wigner-negative states

Quantum Physics 2025-10-21 v3 Statistical Mechanics High Energy Physics - Theory Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

In quantum resource theory, one is often interested in identifying which states serve as the best resources for particular quantum tasks. If a relative comparison between quantum states can be made, this gives rise to a partial order, where states are ordered according to their suitability to act as a resource. In the literature, various different partial orders for a variety of quantum resources have been proposed. In discrete variable systems, vector majorization of Wigner functions in discrete phase space provides a natural partial order between quantum states. In the continuous variable case, a natural counterpart would be continuous majorization of Wigner functions in quantum phase space. Indeed, this concept was recently proposed and explored (mostly restricting to the single-mode case) in Van Herstraeten, Jabbour, Cerf, Quantum 7, 1021 (2023). In this work, we develop the theory of continuous majorization in the general NN-mode case. In addition, we propose extensions to include states with finite Wigner negativity. For the special case of the convex hull of NN-mode Gaussian states, we prove a conjecture made by Van Herstraeten, Jabbour and Cerf. We also prove a phase space counterpart of Uhlmann's theorem of majorization.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2412.19698,
  title  = {Continuous majorization in quantum phase space for Wigner-positive states and proposals for Wigner-negative states},
  author = {Jan de Boer and Giuseppe Di Giulio and Esko Keski-Vakkuri and Erik Tonni},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.19698},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

34 pages, 5 figures. v2: Updated after peer-reviewing process. Change in the title. Improvement of Results 7 and 11 and in the presentation of the new preorder proposals. Modifications in the introduction and in parts of the text to improve readability. Corrected misreading of previous work. Changes in some notations and nomenclatures to enhance clarity. v3: published version. Appendix F added