A gap for the maximum number of mutually unbiased bases
arXiv:0902.0635
Abstract
A collection of pairwise mutually unbiased bases (in short: MUB) in d>1 dimensions may consist of at most d+1 bases. Such "complete" collections are known to exists in C^d when d is a power of a prime. However, in general little is known about the maximal number N(d) of bases that a collection of MUBs in C^d can have. In this work it is proved that a collection of d MUBs in C^d can be always completed. Hence N(d) cannot be d and when d>1 we have a dichotomy: either N(d)=d+1 (so that there exists a complete collection of MUBs), or N(d)\leq d-1. In the course of the proof an interesting new characterization is given for a linear subspace of M_d(C) to be a subalgebra.
v2: An interesting new characterization is added for a linear subspace of M_d(C) to be a subalgebra. This in turn is used to produce a more elegant proof for the main theorem. Also, more similarities are noted between the case of orthogonal Latin squares and that of mutually unbiased bases