A Survey of the Concept of Disturbance in Quantum Mechanics

• Main Authors: Ernesto Benítez Rodríguez, Luis Manuel Arévalo Aguilar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-02-01
• Series: Entropy
• Subjects: disturbance; quantum mechanics; uncertainty principle; information gain
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/21/2/142

The concept of disturbance is of transcendental importance in Quantum Mechanics (QM). This key concept has been described in two different ways, the first one considering that the disturbance affects observables like <i>x</i> and <i>p</i>, as in the Heisenberg&#8217;s analysis of the measurement process and the other one takes into consideration that disturbance affects the state of the system instead. Entropic information measures have provided a path for studying disturbance in these both approaches; in fact, we found that initially it was studied by employing these entropic measures. In addition, in the last decade, there was an extensive amount of analyses and several new definitions of the disturbance concept emerged. Many crucial factors like this have inspired this concise paper which gathers the different concepts and definitions that have emerged through time for the better understanding of this topic.