Mutually unbiased measurements in finite dimensions

Abstract

We generalize the concept of mutually unbiased bases (MUB) to measurements which are not necessarily described by rank one projectors. As such, these measurements can be a useful tool to study the long-standing problem of the existence of MUB. We derive their general form, and show that in a finite, d-dimensional Hilbert space, one can construct a complete set of mutually unbiased measurements. Besides their intrinsic link to MUB, we show that these measurements' statistics provide complete information about the state of the system. Moreover, they capture the physical essence of unbiasedness, and in particular, they satisfy a non-trivial entropic uncertainty relation similar to MUB. © 2014 IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.