Constructing extremal compatible quantum observables by means of two mutually unbiased bases

TL;DR

This paper characterizes extremal compatible quantum observables constructed from noisy versions of mutually unbiased bases, revealing how their extremality depends on the dimension and type of MUB used.

Contribution

It provides a criterion to identify which MUB pairs produce extremal compatible observables and explores the role of Fourier conjugate MUB in this context.

Findings

Extremality depends on the dimension being odd for Fourier conjugate MUB.

Not all MUB pairs can generate extremal compatible observables.

The geometric difference in extremality reflects MUB inequivalence.

Abstract

We describe a particular class of pairs of quantum observables which are extremal in the convex set of all pairs of compatible quantum observables. The pairs in this class are constructed as uniformly noisy versions of two mutually unbiased bases (MUB) with possibly different noise intensities affecting each basis. We show that not all pairs of MUB can be used in this construction, and we provide a criterion for determiniing those MUB that actually do yield extremal compatible observables. We apply our criterion to all pairs of Fourier conjugate MUB, and we prove that in this case extremality is achieved if and only if the quantum system Hilbert space is odd-dimensional. Remarkably, this fact is no longer true for general non-Fourier conjugate MUB, as we show in an example. Therefore, the presence or the absence of extremality is a concrete geometric manifestation of MUB inequivalence, that already materializes by comparing sets of no more than two bases at a time.