English

Resource theory of coherence in continuous position basis from measurement-induced dephasing

Quantum Physics 2026-05-18 v2 Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

We develop a resource-theoretic framework for quantum coherence directly in continuous basis, with emphasis on the position representation. Since position eigenstates are non-normalizable generalized eigenstates, the standard finite-dimensional dephasing map cannot be transferred directly to normal states. We therefore introduce a physically motivated dephasing channel based on random momentum kicks, equivalently described as the unconditional back-action of a finite-resolution position measurement. This yields a fixed-point notion of incoherence and a natural class of dephasing-covariant free operations. For physically relevant kernels, however, the fixed-point set contains no normal states, showing that continuous-basis coherence is tied to dephasing disturbance rather than to distance from a nonempty set of diagonal states. We study two quantifiers built from the channel action: a relative-entropy dephasing loss and a Hilbert-Schmidt dephasing loss. The former satisfies the main resource-theoretic properties under the free operations considered, while the latter is convex and experimentally transparent but fails monotonicity and strong monotonicity. We also formulate threshold witnesses for certifying coherence above a finite value and connect them, in a two-path setting, with interference visibility. Finally, we illustrate the framework with a Gaussian wavepacket evolving in a gravitational potential. The resulting theory provides a mathematically consistent and physically motivated treatment of coherence in continuous-variable systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.09014,
  title  = {Resource theory of coherence in continuous position basis from measurement-induced dephasing},
  author = {Karol Sajnok and Fabio Costa},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.09014},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

15 pages, 1 figure, 2 appendices