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Concept
Wigner quasiprobability distribution
Summary
The Wigner quasiprobability distribution (also called the Wigner function or the Wigner–Ville distribution, after Eugene Wigner and Jean-André Ville) is a quasiprobability distribution. It was introduced by Eugene Wigner in 1932 to study quantum corrections to classical statistical mechanics. The goal was to link the wavefunction that appears in Schrödinger's equation to a probability distribution in phase space.
It is a generating function for all spatial autocorrelation functions of a given quantum-mechanical wavefunction ψ(x).
Thus, it maps on the quantum density matrix in the map between real phase-space functions and Hermitian operators introduced by Hermann Weyl in 1927, in a context related to representation theory in mathematics (see Weyl quantization). In effect, it is the Wigner–Weyl transform of the density matrix, so the realization of that operator in phase space. It was later rederived by Jean Ville in 1948 as a quadratic (in signal) representation of the local time-frequency energy of a signal, effectively a spectrogram.
In 1949, José Enrique Moyal, who had derived it independently, recognized it as the quantum moment-generating functional, and thus as the basis of an elegant encoding of all quantum expectation values, and hence quantum mechanics, in phase space (see Phase-space formulation). It has applications in statistical mechanics, quantum chemistry, quantum optics, classical optics and signal analysis in diverse fields, such as electrical engineering, seismology, time–frequency analysis for music signals, spectrograms in biology and speech processing, and engine design.
A classical particle has a definite position and momentum, and hence it is represented by a point in phase space. Given a collection (ensemble) of particles, the probability of finding a particle at a certain position in phase space is specified by a probability distribution, the Liouville density. This strict interpretation fails
for a quantum particle, due to the uncertainty principle.
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Related publications (65)
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Related concepts (19)
Phase-space formulation
The phase-space formulation of quantum mechanics places the position and momentum variables on equal footing in phase space. In contrast, the Schrödinger picture uses the position or momentum representations (see also position and momentum space). The two key features of the phase-space formulation are that the quantum state is described by a quasiprobability distribution (instead of a wave function, state vector, or density matrix) and operator multiplication is replaced by a star product.
Squeezed coherent state
In physics, a squeezed coherent state is a quantum state that is usually described by two non-commuting observables having continuous spectra of eigenvalues. Examples are position and momentum of a particle, and the (dimension-less) electric field in the amplitude (phase 0) and in the mode (phase 90°) of a light wave (the wave's quadratures). The product of the standard deviations of two such operators obeys the uncertainty principle: and , respectively.
Coherent state
In physics, specifically in quantum mechanics, a coherent state is the specific quantum state of the quantum harmonic oscillator, often described as a state which has dynamics most closely resembling the oscillatory behavior of a classical harmonic oscillator. It was the first example of quantum dynamics when Erwin Schrödinger derived it in 1926, while searching for solutions of the Schrödinger equation that satisfy the correspondence principle.