Quantum and classical entropic uncertainty relations

Abstract

How much of the uncertainty in predicting measurement outcomes for non-commuting quantum observables is genuinely quantum mechanical? We provide a natural decomposition of the total entropic uncertainty of two non-commuting observables into a classical component, and an intrinsically quantum mechanical component. We show that the total quantum component in a state is never lower or upper bounded by any state-independent quantities, but instead admits "purity-based" lower bounds that generalize entropic formulations such as the Maassen-Uffink relation. These relations reveal a non-trivial interplay between quantum and classical randomness in any finite-dimensional state.