Uncertainty and certainty relations for complementary qubit observables in terms of Tsallis’ entropies

Abstract

Uncertainty relations for more than two observables have found use in quantum information, though commonly known relations pertain to a pair of observables. We present novel uncertainty and certainty relations of state-independent form for the three Pauli observables with use of the Tsallis $\alpha$-entropies. For all real $\alpha \in (0;1]$ and integer $\alpha \ge 2$, lower bounds on the sum of three $\alpha$-entropies are obtained. These bounds are tight in the sense that they are always reached with certain pure states. The necessary and sufficient condition for equality is that the qubit state is an eigenstate of one of the Pauli observables. Using concavity with respect to the parameter $\alpha$, we derive approximate lower bounds for non-integer $\alpha \in (1;+\infty )$. In the case of pure states, the developed method also allows to obtain upper bounds on the entropic sum for real $\alpha \in (0;1]$ and integer $\alpha \ge 2$. For applied purposes, entropic bounds are often used with averaging over the individual entropies. Combining the obtained bounds leads to a band, in which the rescaled average $\alpha$-entropy ranges in the pure-state case. A width of this band is essentially dependent on $\alpha$. It can be interpreted as an evidence for sensitivity in quantifying the complementarity.