Related papers: Necessity of negativity in quantum theory
Wigner functions play a central role in the phase space formulation of quantum mechanics. Although closely related to classical Liouville densities, Wigner functions are not positive definite and may take negative values on subregions of…
The negativity of a given state's Wigner function has been proposed as a measure of quantumness of that state in a unipartite system. This otherwise physically intuitive and useful phase-space measure however does not yield the right…
Contextuality and negativity of the Wigner function are two notions of non-classicality for quantum systems. Howard, Wallman, Veitch and Emerson proved recently that these two notions coincide for qudits in odd prime dimension. This…
Wigner's quasi-probability distribution function in phase-space is a special (Weyl) representation of the density matrix. It has been useful in describing quantum transport in quantum optics; nuclear physics; decoherence (eg, quantum…
The problem of simulatability of quantum processes using classical resources plays a cornerstone role for quantum computing. Quantum circuits can be simulated classically, e.g., using Monte Carlo sampling techniques applied to…
It is common knowledge that the Wigner function of a quantum state may admit negative values, so that it cannot be viewed as a genuine probability density. Here, we examine the difficulty in finding an entropy-like functional in phase space…
In this article we introduce a quasiprobability distribution of work that is based on the Wigner function. This construction rests on the idea that the work done on an isolated system can be coherently measured by coupling the system to a…
Quantum theory does not only predict probabilities, but also relative phases for any experiment, that involves measurements of an ensemble of systems at different moments of time. We argue, that any operational formulation of quantum theory…
Why does quantum theory need the complex numbers? With a view toward answering this question, this paper argues that the usual Hilbert-space formalism is a special case of the general method of Markovian embeddings. This paper then…
The quantum state of a light beam can be represented as an infinite dimensional density matrix or equivalently as a density on the plane called the Wigner function. We describe quantum tomography as an inverse statistical problem in which…
We propose a method for classical simulation of finite-dimensional quantum systems, based on sampling from a quasiprobability distribution, i.e., a generalized Wigner function. Our construction applies to all finite dimensions, with the…
In a recent paper it was shown that all the Hilbert space formulas for quantum probabilities can be realized as functions of geometric properties of the associated projective space, but those functions were expressed using the structures of…
Measurement incompatibility and the negativity of quasiprobability distribution functions are well-known non-classical aspects of quantum systems. Both of them are widely accepted resources in quantum information processing. We acquaint an…
Given a choice of an ordered, orthonormal basis for a $D$-dimensional Hilbert space, one can define a discrete version of the Wigner function -- a quasi-probability distribution which represents any quantum state as a real, normalized…
There exist many attempts to define a Wigner function for qudits, each of them coming with its advantages and limitations. The existing finite versions have simple definitions, but they are artificial in their construction and do not allow…
We introduce a quantum phase space representation for the orientation state of extended quantum objects, using the Euler angles and their conjugate momenta as phase space coordinates. It exhibits the same properties as the standard Wigner…
Wigner's theorem asserts that an isometric (probability conserving) transformation on a quantum state space must be generated by a Hamiltonian that is Hermitian. It is shown that when the Hermiticity condition on the Hamiltonian is relaxed,…
The Majorana stellar representation is used to characterize spin states that have a maximally negative Wigner quasiprobability distribution on a spherical phase space. These maximally Wigner-negative spin states generally exhibit a partial…
We present a scheme to reconstruct the quantum state of a field prepared inside a lossy cavity at finite temperature. Quantum coherences are normally destroyed by the interaction with an environment, but we show that it is possible to…
We establish the conditions under which a conservation law associated with a non-invertible operator may be realized as a symmetry in quantum physics. As established by Wigner, all quantum symmetries must be represented by either unitary or…