Margenau-Hill distribution as a Necessary and Sufficient Signature of Measurement Incompatibility
Abstract
Measurement incompatibility and the negativity of quasi-probability distributions both demonstrate the signature of nonclassicality. However, their relations largely remained qualitative, and no explicit operational connection has been established. We provide an operational link between measurement incompatibility and the Margenau-Hill(MH) quasi-probability distribution associated with two dichotomic observables. { We first derive the joint measurability (measurement compatibility) condition for any pair of dichotomic observables in arbitrary finite dimension d.} We then rigorously prove that for any pair of unsharp dichotomic measurements in dimension d, the positivity of the MH distribution is equivalent to joint measurability \emph{i.e.}, the MH distribution is positive \emph{if and only if} the measurements are jointly measurable. We further introduce the MH-like quasi-probability distribution for n dichotomic unsharp observables in arbitrary finite dimension and derive a sufficient condition of joint-measurability when the observables are mutually anticommuting. Finally, we propose an interferometric setup, inspired by quantum-switch architectures, that directly reconstructs MH quasi-probability which in turn provides a test of incompatibility.
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BibTeX
@misc{patra2026margenauhill,
title = {{Margenau-Hill distribution as a Necessary and Sufficient Signature of Measurement Incompatibility}},
author = {Partha Patra and A. K. Pan},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.37144},
eprint = {2609.37144},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.37144},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Margenau-Hill distribution as a Necessary and Sufficient Signature of Measurement Incompatibility
AU - Partha Patra
AU - A. K. Pan
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.37144
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.37144
AB - Measurement incompatibility and the negativity of quasi-probability distributions both demonstrate the signature of nonclassicality. However, their relations largely remained qualitative, and no explicit operational connection has been established. We provide an operational link between measurement incompatibility and the Margenau-Hill(MH) quasi-probability distribution associated with two dichotomic observables. { We first derive the joint measurability (measurement compatibility) condition for any pair of dichotomic observables in arbitrary finite dimension d.} We then rigorously prove that for any pair of unsharp dichotomic measurements in dimension d, the positivity of the MH distribution is equivalent to joint measurability \emph{i.e.}, the MH distribution is positive \emph{if and only if} the measurements are jointly measurable. We further introduce the MH-like quasi-probability distribution for n dichotomic unsharp observables in arbitrary finite dimension and derive a sufficient condition of joint-measurability when the observables are mutually anticommuting. Finally, we propose an interferometric setup, inspired by quantum-switch architectures, that directly reconstructs MH quasi-probability which in turn provides a test of incompatibility.
ER -