Inequivalent ways to apply semi-classical smoothing to a quantum system
Abstract
In this paper, we correct a mistake we made in [Phys. Rev. Lett. , 190402 (2019)] and [Phys. Rev. A , 012213 (2021)] regarding the Wigner function of the so-called smoothed Weak-Valued state (SWV state). Here smoothing refers to estimation of properties at time using information obtained in measurements both before and after . The SWV state is a pseudo-state (Hermitian but not necessarily positive) that gives, by the usual trace formula, the correct value for a weak measurement preformed at time , , its weak value. The Wigner function is a pseudo-probability-distribution (real but not necessarily positive) over phase-space. A smoothed (in this estimation sense) Wigner distribution at time can also be defined by applying classical smoothing for probability-distributions to the Wigner functions. The smoothed Wigner distribution (SWD) gives identical means for the canonical phase-space variables as does the SWV state. However, contrary to the assumption in the above references, the Wigner function of the SWV state is not the smoothed Wigner distribution.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2505.00341,
title = {Inequivalent ways to apply semi-classical smoothing to a quantum system},
author = {Kiarn T. Laverick and Areeya Chantasri and Howard M. Wiseman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.00341},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
6 pages, 2 figures. Comments welcome!