Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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MP: Fachverband Theoretische und Mathematische Grundlagen der Physik

MP 12: Quantenmechanik II

MP 12.2: Talk

Wednesday, March 18, 2015, 17:10–17:30, HFT-FT 101

On uncertainty relations for angular momentum — Lars Dammeier, •René Schwonnek, Kais Abdelkhalek, and Reinhard F. Werner — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Leibniz Universität Hannover

We report on quantifying uncertainty for operators satisfying the angular momentum algebra. This is a natural example of how the concept of uncertainty can be generalised to the case of more than two non-commuting observables.

We present our results for the case of preparation uncertainty. Using variances as a figure of merit, the concept of uncertainty can be captured by characterising the set of all tuples of variances which can be attained by a quantum state in a measurement of angular momentum components. Uncertainty relations then correspond to lower bounds on this set.

The shape of this set strongly depends on the total spin of system. For spin 1/2 and 1 we provide an exact characterisation of these sets. Additionally, we investigate the behavior for very large spin.