The Narcowich-Wigner spectrum of a pure state (Q2270470): Difference between revisions

The Weyl-Wigner-Moyal formalism assigns a real phase space function \(F(x,p)\), often called Wigner distribution function, to any quantum mechanical state, either pure or mixed, of a particle. However, \(F\) cannot be interpreted as a joint probability distribution of the position \(x\) and the momentum \(p\), since it is not necessarily nonnegative. Partial answers to the following questions may be found in the literature. (1) When is \(F\) nonnegative? (2) When does it correspond to a pure, when to a mixed state? Which square-integrable phase space functions are Wigner functions? Still, many questions remain open. In 1988 Narcowich introduced and explored a spectral set \(W(F)\), subset of the real line, when \(F\) is square-integrable, proving that \(W(F)=[-\hbar, \hbar]\) if \(F\) corresponds to a pure state and is Gaussian. The authors now prove that \(W(F)\subseteq [-\hbar, \hbar]\) for any pure state. Then they repeat the proof of Narcowich's theorem and extend it by showing that \(W(F)=\{-\hbar, \hbar\}\) if \(F\) corresponds to a pure state and is non-Gaussian. Unfortunately, the complete characterization of pure states in terms of their Wigner functions remains an open problem.