Relative entropic uncertainty relation for scalar quantum fields

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new entropic uncertainty relation for scalar quantum fields using a functional relative entropy, overcoming previous limitations and connecting to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Contribution

It presents the first entropic uncertainty relation for scalar quantum field theories, extending the concept beyond finite-dimensional systems.

Findings

The relation has a meaningful limit in quantum field theory.

It applies to various states like particle excitations and thermal states.

It implies the multidimensional Heisenberg uncertainty relation.

Abstract

Entropic uncertainty is a well-known concept to formulate uncertainty relations for continuous variable quantum systems with finitely many degrees of freedom. Typically, the bounds of such relations scale with the number of oscillator modes, preventing a straight-forward generalization to quantum field theories. In this work, we overcome this difficulty by introducing the notion of a functional relative entropy and show that it has a meaningful field theory limit. We present the first entropic uncertainty relation for a scalar quantum field theory and exemplify its behavior by considering few particle excitations and the thermal state. Also, we show that the relation implies the multidimensional Heisenberg uncertainty relation.