Negativity of quasiprobability distributions as a measure of nonclassicality

Abstract

We demonstrate that the negative volume of any $s$-paramatrized quasiprobability, including the Glauber-Sudashan $P$-function, can be consistently defined and forms a continuous hierarchy of nonclassicality measures that are linear optical monotones. These measures therefore belong to an operational resource theory of nonclassicality based on linear optical operations. The negativity of the Glauber-Sudashan $P$-function in particular can be shown to have an operational interpretation as the robustness of nonclassicality. We then introduce an approximate linear optical monotone, and show that this nonclassicality quantifier is computable and is able to identify the nonclassicality of nearly all nonclassical states.