Wigner-Araki-Yanase theorem for continuous and unbounded conserved observables

Abstract

The Wigner-Araki-Yanase (WAY) theorem states that additive conservation laws imply the commutativity of exactly implementable projective measurements and the conserved observables of the system. Known proofs of this theorem are only restricted to bounded or discrete-spectrum conserved observables of the system and are not applicable to unbounded and continuous observables like a momentum operator. In this Letter, we present the WAY theorem for possibly unbounded and continuous conserved observables under the Yanase condition, which requires that the probe positive operator-valued measure should commute with the conserved observable of the probe system. As a result of this WAY theorem, we show that exact implementations of the projective measurement of the position under momentum conservation and of the quadrature amplitude using linear optical instruments and photon counters are impossible. We also consider implementations of unitary channels under conservation laws and find that the conserved observable $L_S$ of the system commute with the implemented unitary $U_S$ if $L_S$ is semi-bounded, while $U_S^\dagger L_S U_S$ can shift up to possibly non-zero constant factor if the spectrum of $L_S$ is upper and lower unbounded. We give simple examples of the latter case, where $L_S$ is a momentum operator.