English

The information entropy of quantum mechanical states

Quantum Physics 2009-11-10 v2 Condensed Matter Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

It is well known that a Shannon based definition of information entropy leads in the classical case to the Boltzmann entropy. It is tempting to regard the Von Neumann entropy as the corresponding quantum mechanical definition. But the latter is problematic from quantum information point of view. Consequently we introduce a new definition of entropy that reflects the inherent uncertainty of quantum mechanical states. We derive for it an explicit expression, and discuss some of its general properties. We distinguish between the minimum uncertainty entropy of pure states, and the excess statistical entropy of mixtures.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0401021,
  title  = {The information entropy of quantum mechanical states},
  author = {Alexander Stotland and Andrei A. Pomeransky and Eitan Bachmat and Doron Cohen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0401021},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

7 pages, 1 figure