Comment on “Quantum phase for an arbitrary system with finite-dimensional Hilbert space”

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Author(s)
Hall, Michael JW
Pegg, David T
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2012
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A construction of covariant quantum phase observables, for Hamiltonians with a finite number of energy eigenvalues, has been recently given by?D. Arsenovic et al. [ Phys. Rev. A 85 044103 (2012)]. For Hamiltonians generating periodic evolution, we show that this construction is just a simple rescaling of the known canonical "time" or "age" observable, with the period T rescaled to 2p. Further, for Hamiltonians generating quasiperiodic evolution, we note that the construction leads to a phase observable having several undesirable features, including (i) having a trivially uniform probability density for any state of the system, ...
View more >A construction of covariant quantum phase observables, for Hamiltonians with a finite number of energy eigenvalues, has been recently given by?D. Arsenovic et al. [ Phys. Rev. A 85 044103 (2012)]. For Hamiltonians generating periodic evolution, we show that this construction is just a simple rescaling of the known canonical "time" or "age" observable, with the period T rescaled to 2p. Further, for Hamiltonians generating quasiperiodic evolution, we note that the construction leads to a phase observable having several undesirable features, including (i) having a trivially uniform probability density for any state of the system, (ii) not reducing to the periodic case in an appropriate limit, and (iii) not having any clear generalization to an infinite energy spectrum. In contrast, we note that a covariant time observable has been previously defined for such Hamiltonians, which avoids these features. We also show how this "quasiperiodic" time observable can be represented as the well-defined limit of a sequence of periodic time observables.
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View more >A construction of covariant quantum phase observables, for Hamiltonians with a finite number of energy eigenvalues, has been recently given by?D. Arsenovic et al. [ Phys. Rev. A 85 044103 (2012)]. For Hamiltonians generating periodic evolution, we show that this construction is just a simple rescaling of the known canonical "time" or "age" observable, with the period T rescaled to 2p. Further, for Hamiltonians generating quasiperiodic evolution, we note that the construction leads to a phase observable having several undesirable features, including (i) having a trivially uniform probability density for any state of the system, (ii) not reducing to the periodic case in an appropriate limit, and (iii) not having any clear generalization to an infinite energy spectrum. In contrast, we note that a covariant time observable has been previously defined for such Hamiltonians, which avoids these features. We also show how this "quasiperiodic" time observable can be represented as the well-defined limit of a sequence of periodic time observables.
View less >
Journal Title
Physical Review A
Volume
86
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© 2012 American Physical Society. This is the author-manuscript version of this paper. Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Please refer to the journal's website for access to the definitive, published version.
Subject
Mathematical sciences
Physical sciences
Quantum information, computation and communication
Quantum physics not elsewhere classified
Chemical sciences