Heisenberg's uncertainty principle for simultaneous measurement of positive-operator-valued measures

Takayuki Miyadera, Hideki Imai

Published 2008-09-10, updated 2008-11-22Version 3

A limitation on simultaneous measurement of two arbitrary positive operator valued measures is discussed. In general, simultaneous measurement of two noncommutative observables is only approximately possible. Following Werner's formulation, we introduce a distance between observables to quantify an accuracy of measurement. We derive an inequality that relates the achievable accuracy with noncommutativity between two observables. As a byproduct a necessary condition for two positive operator valued measures to be simultaneously measurable is obtained.