English

On the complex zeros of the wavefunction

Quantum Physics 2025-08-04 v2

Abstract

The Schr\"odinger wavefunction is ubiquitous in quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry, and bosonic quantum information theory. Its zero-set for fermionic systems is well-studied and central for determining chemical properties, yet for bosonic systems the zero-set is less understood, especially in the context of characterizing non-classicality. Here we study the zeros of such wavefunctions and give them a novel information-theoretic interpretation. Our main technical result is showing that the wavefunction of most bosonic quantum systems can be extended to a holomorphic function over the complex plane, allowing the application of powerful techniques from complex analysis. As a consequence, we prove a version of Hudson's theorem for the wavefunction and characterize Gaussian dynamics as classical motion of the wavefunction zeros. Our findings suggest that the non-Gaussianity of quantum optical states can be detected by measuring a single quadrature of the electromagnetic field, which we demonstrate in a companion paper [arXiv:2507.23005]. More generally, our results show that the non-Gaussian features of bosonic quantum systems are encoded in the zeros of their wavefunction.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2507.23468,
  title  = {On the complex zeros of the wavefunction},
  author = {Sacha Cerf and Clara Wassner and Jack Davis and Francesco Arzani and Ulysse Chabaud},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.23468},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

7 + 13 pages, no figures; added reference to companion paper (arXiv:2507.23005)

R2 v1 2026-07-01T04:27:40.687Z