MUTUAL UNCERTAINTY, CONDITIONAL UNCERTAINTY, AND STRONG SUBADDITIVITY

Abstract

We introduce a concept, called the mutual uncertainty between two observables in a given quantum state, which enjoys features similar to those of the mutual information for two random variables. Further, we define conditional uncertainty as well as conditional variance and show that conditioning on more observables reduces the uncertainty. Given three observables, we prove a “strong subadditivity” relation for the conditional uncertainty under certain conditions. As an application, we show that by using the conditional variance one can detect bipartite higher dimensional entangled states. The efficacy of our detection method lies in the fact that it gives better detection criteria than most of the existing criteria based on geometry of the states. Interestingly, we find that for N qubit product states, the mutual uncertainty is exactly equal to N-sqrt(N), and if it is other than this value, the state is entangled. We also show that using the mutual uncertainty between two observables, one can detect non-Gaussian steering where Reid's criterion fails to detect it. Our results may open a direction of exploration in quantum theory and quantum information using mutual uncertainty, conditional uncertainty, and the strong subadditivity for multiple observables.