Minimum uncertainty states of angular momentum and angular position

View/ Open
Author(s)
Pegg, DT
Barnett, SM
Zambrini, R
Franke-Arnold, S
Padgett, M
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2005
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The states of linear momentum that satisfy the equality in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle for position and momentum, that is the intelligent states, are also the states that minimize the uncertainty product for position and momentum. The corresponding uncertainty relation for angular momentum and angular position, however, is more complicated and the intelligent states need not be the constrained minimum uncertainty product states. In this paper, we investigate the differences between the intelligent and the constrained minimum uncertainty product states for the angular case by means of instructive approximations, a ...
View more >The states of linear momentum that satisfy the equality in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle for position and momentum, that is the intelligent states, are also the states that minimize the uncertainty product for position and momentum. The corresponding uncertainty relation for angular momentum and angular position, however, is more complicated and the intelligent states need not be the constrained minimum uncertainty product states. In this paper, we investigate the differences between the intelligent and the constrained minimum uncertainty product states for the angular case by means of instructive approximations, a numerical iterative search and the exact solution. We find that these differences can be quite significant for particular values of angular position uncertainty and indeed may be amenable to experimental measurement with the present technology.
View less >
View more >The states of linear momentum that satisfy the equality in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle for position and momentum, that is the intelligent states, are also the states that minimize the uncertainty product for position and momentum. The corresponding uncertainty relation for angular momentum and angular position, however, is more complicated and the intelligent states need not be the constrained minimum uncertainty product states. In this paper, we investigate the differences between the intelligent and the constrained minimum uncertainty product states for the angular case by means of instructive approximations, a numerical iterative search and the exact solution. We find that these differences can be quite significant for particular values of angular position uncertainty and indeed may be amenable to experimental measurement with the present technology.
View less >
Journal Title
New Journal of Physics
Volume
7
Publisher URI
Copyright Statement
© 2005 Institute of Physics. Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. This journal is available online please use hypertext links.
Note
Page numbers are not for citation purposes. Instead, this article has the unique article number of 62.
Subject
Physical sciences