Uncertainty relations and information loss for spin-1/2 measurements

Abstract: We formulate entropic measurements uncertainty relations (MURs) for a spin-1/2 system. When incompatible observables are approximatively jointly measured, we use relative entropy to quantify the information lost in approximation and we prove positive lower bounds for such a loss: there is an unavoidable information loss. Firstly we allow only for covariant approximate joint measurements and we find state-dependent MURs for two or three orthogonal spin-1/2 components. Secondly we consider any possible approximate joint measurement and we find state-independent MURs for two or three spin-1/2 components. In particular we study how MURs depend on the angle between two spin directions. Finally, we extend our approach to infinitely many incompatible observables, namely to the spin components in all possible directions. In every scenario, we always consider also the characterization of the optimal approximate joint measurements.