In quantum information theory, a set of bases in Hilbert space C^d are said to be mutually unbiased to mean, that, if a system is prepared in an eigen state of one of the bases, then all outcomes of the measurement with respect to the other basis are predicted to occur with an equal probability inexorably equal to 1/d.

The notion of mutually unbiased bases was first introduced by Schwinger in 1960,^[1] and the first person to consider applications of mutually unbiased bases was Ivanovic^[2] in the problem of quantum state determination.

MUBs and their existence problem, is now known to have several closely related problems and equivalent avatars in several other branches of mathematics and quantum sciences, such as SIC-POVMs, finite projective / affine planes, complex Hadamard matrices etc. [see: Related Problems and Constructions sections in the below for details]

MUBs are important for quantum key distribution, more specifically in secure quantum key exchange.^[3] Mutually unbiased bases are used in many protocols since the outcome is random when a measurement is made in a basis unbiased to that in which the state was prepared. When two remote parties share two non-orthogonal quantum states, attempts by an eavesdropper to distinguish between these by measurements will affect the system and this can be detected. While many quantum cryptography protocols have relied on 1-qubit technologies, employing higher-dimensional states, such as qutrits, allows for better security against eavesdropping.^[3] This motivates the study of mutually unbiased bases in higher-dimensional spaces.

Other uses of mutually unbiased bases include quantum state reconstruction,^[4] quantum error correction codes,^[5][6] detection of quantum entanglement,^[7][8] and the so-called "mean king's problem".^[9][10]

A pair of orthonormal bases ${\displaystyle \{|e_{1}\rangle ,\dots ,|e_{d}\rangle \}}$ and ${\displaystyle \{|f_{1}\rangle ,\dots ,|f_{d}\rangle \}}$ in Hilbert space C^d are said to be mutually unbiased, if and only if the square of the magnitude of the inner product between any basis states ${\displaystyle |e_{j}\rangle }$ and ${\displaystyle |f_{k}\rangle }$ equals the inverse of the dimension d:^[11]

${\displaystyle |\langle e_{j}|f_{k}\rangle |^{2}={\frac {1}{d}},\quad \forall j,k\in \{1,\dots ,d\}.}$

These bases are unbiased in the following sense: if a system is prepared in a state belonging to one of the bases, then all outcomes of the measurement with respect to the other basis are predicted to occur with equal probability.

Let ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {M}}(d)}$ denote the maximum number of mutually unbiased bases in the d-dimensional Hilbert space C^d. It is an open question^[13] how many mutually unbiased bases, ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {M}}(d)}$, one can find in C^d, for arbitrary d.

In general, if

${\displaystyle d=p_{1}^{n_{1}}p_{2}^{n_{2}}\cdots p_{k}^{n_{k}}}$

is the prime-power factorization of d, where

${\displaystyle p_{1}^{n_{1}}<p_{2}^{n_{2}}<\cdots <p_{k}^{n_{k}}}$

then the maximum number of mutually unbiased bases which can be constructed satisfies^[11]

${\displaystyle p_{1}^{n_{1}}+1\leq {\mathfrak {M}}(d)\leq d+1.}$

It follows that if the dimension of a Hilbert space d is an integer power of a prime number, then it is possible to find d + 1 mutually unbiased bases. This can be seen in the previous equation, as the prime number decomposition of d simply is ${\displaystyle d=p^{n}}$. Therefore,

${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {M}}(p^{n})=p^{n}+1.}$

Thus, the maximum number of mutually unbiased bases is known when d is an integer power of a prime number, but it is not known for arbitrary d.

The smallest dimension that is not an integer power of a prime is d = 6. This is also the smallest dimension for which the number of mutually unbiased bases is not known. The methods used to determine the number of mutually unbiased bases when d is an integer power of a prime number cannot be used in this case. Searches for a set of four mutually unbiased bases when d = 6, both by using Hadamard matrices^[11] and numerical methods^[14][15] have been unsuccessful. The general belief is that the maximum number of mutually unbiased bases for d = 6 is ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {M}}(6)=3}$.^[11]

The MUBs problem seems similar in nature to the symmetric property of SIC-POVMs. Wootters points out that a complete set of ${\displaystyle d+1}$ unbiased bases yields a geometric structure known as a finite projective plane, while a SIC-POVM (in any dimension that is a prime power) yields a finite affine plane, a type of structure whose definition is identical to that of a finite projective plane with the roles of points and lines exchanged. In this sense, the problems of SIC-POVMs and of mutually unbiased bases are dual to one another.^[16]

In dimension ${\displaystyle d=3}$, the analogy can be taken further: a complete set of mutually unbiased bases can be directly constructed from a SIC-POVM.^[17] The 9 vectors of the SIC-POVM, together with the 12 vectors of the mutually unbiased bases, form a set that can be used in a Kochen–Specker proof.^[18] However, in 6-dimensional Hilbert space, a SIC-POVM is known, but no complete set of mutually unbiased bases has yet been discovered, and it is widely believed that no such set exists.^[19][20]

There is an alternative characterization of mutually unbiased bases that considers them in terms of uncertainty relations.^[22]

Entropic uncertainty relations are analogous to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and Maassen and Uffink^[23] found that for any two bases ${\displaystyle B_{1}=\{|a_{i}\rangle _{i=1}^{d}\}}$ and ${\displaystyle B_{2}=\{|b_{j}\rangle _{j=1}^{d}\}}$:

${\displaystyle H_{B_{1}}+H_{B_{2}}\geq -2\log c.}$

where ${\displaystyle c=\max |\langle a_{j}|b_{k}\rangle |}$ and ${\displaystyle H_{B_{1}}}$ and ${\displaystyle H_{B_{2}}}$ is the respective entropy of the bases ${\displaystyle B_{1}}$ and ${\displaystyle B_{2}}$, when measuring a given state.

Entropic uncertainty relations are often preferable^[24] to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, as they are not phrased in terms of the state to be measured, but in terms of c.

In scenarios such as quantum key distribution, we aim for measurement bases such that full knowledge of a state with respect to one basis implies minimal knowledge of the state with respect to the other bases. This implies a high entropy of measurement outcomes, and thus we call these strong entropic uncertainty relations.

For two bases, the lower bound of the uncertainty relation is maximized when the measurement bases are mutually unbiased, since mutually unbiased bases are maximally incompatible: the outcome of a measurement made in a basis unbiased to that in which the state is prepared in is completely random. In fact, for a d-dimensional space, we have:^[25]

${\displaystyle H_{B_{1}}+H_{B_{2}}\geq \log(d)}$

for any pair of mutually unbiased bases ${\displaystyle B_{1}}$ and ${\displaystyle B_{2}}$. This bound is optimal:^[26] If we measure a state from one of the bases then the outcome has entropy 0 in that basis and an entropy of ${\displaystyle \log(d)}$ in the other.

If the dimension of the space is a prime power, we can construct d + 1 MUBs, and then it has been found that^[27]

${\displaystyle \sum _{k=1}^{d+1}H_{B_{k}}\geq (d+1)\log \left({\frac {d+1}{2}}\right)}$

which is stronger than the relation we would get from pairing up the sets and then using the Maassen and Uffink equation. Thus we have a characterization of d + 1 mutually unbiased bases as those for which the uncertainty relations are strongest.

Although the case for two bases, and for d + 1 bases is well studied, very little is known about uncertainty relations for mutually unbiased bases in other circumstances.^{[27] [28]}

When considering more than two, and less than ${\displaystyle d+1}$ bases it is known that large sets of mutually unbiased bases exist which exhibit very little uncertainty.^[29] This means merely being mutually unbiased does not lead to high uncertainty, except when considering measurements in only two bases. Yet there do exist other measurements that are very uncertain.^[27][30]

While there has been investigation into mutually unbiased bases in infinite dimension Hilbert space, their existence remains an open question. It is conjectured that in a continuous Hilbert space, two orthonormal bases ${\displaystyle |\psi _{s}^{b}\rangle }$ and ${\displaystyle |\psi _{s'}^{b'}\rangle }$ are said to be mutually unbiased if^[31]

${\displaystyle |\langle \psi _{s}^{b}|\psi _{s'}^{b'}\rangle |^{2}=k>0,s,s'\in \mathbb {R} }$

For the generalized position and momentum eigenstates ${\displaystyle |q\rangle ,q\in \mathbb {R} }$ and ${\displaystyle |p\rangle ,p\in \mathbb {R} }$, the value of k is

${\displaystyle |\langle q|p\rangle |^{2}={\frac {1}{2\pi \hbar }}}$

The existence of mutually unbiased bases in a continuous Hilbert space remains open for debate, as further research in their existence is required before any conclusions can be reached.

Position states ${\displaystyle |q\rangle }$ and momentum states ${\displaystyle |p\rangle }$ are eigenvectors of Hermitian operators ${\displaystyle {\hat {x}}}$ and ${\displaystyle -i{\frac {\partial }{\partial x}}}$, respectively. Weigert and Wilkinson^[31] were first to notice that also a linear combination of these operators have eigenbases, which have some features typical for the mutually unbiased bases. An operator ${\displaystyle \alpha {\hat {x}}-i\beta {\frac {\partial }{\partial x}}}$ has eigenfunctions proportional to ${\displaystyle \exp(i(ax^{2}+bx))\,}$ with ${\displaystyle \alpha +2\beta a=0}$ and the corresponding eigenvalues ${\displaystyle b\beta }$. If we parametrize ${\displaystyle \alpha }$ and ${\displaystyle \beta }$ as ${\displaystyle \cos \theta }$ and ${\displaystyle \sin \theta }$, the overlap between any eigenstate of the linear combination and any eigenstate of the position operator (both states normalized to the Dirac delta) is constant, but dependent on ${\displaystyle \beta }$:

${\displaystyle |\langle x_{\theta }|x\rangle |^{2}={\frac {1}{2\pi |\sin \theta |}},}$

where ${\displaystyle |x\rangle }$ and ${\displaystyle |x_{\theta }\rangle }$ stand for eigenfunctions of ${\displaystyle {\hat {x}}}$ and ${\displaystyle \cos \theta {\hat {x}}-i\sin \theta {\frac {\partial }{\partial x}}}$.

• Measurement in quantum mechanics
• POVM
• SIC-POVM
• QBism