Mutually unbiased bases: tomography of spin states and the star-product scheme

Mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) are considered within the framework of a generic star-product scheme. We rederive that a full set of MUBs is adequate for a spin tomography, i.e. knowledge of all probabilities to find a system in each MUB-state is enough for a state reconstruction. Extending the ideas of the tomographic-probability representation and the star-product scheme to MUB tomography, dequantizer and quantizer operators for MUB symbols of spin states and operators are introduced, ordinary and dual star-product kernels are found. Since MUB projectors are to obey specific rules of the star-product scheme, we reveal the Lie algebraic structure of MUB projectors and derive new relations on triple- and four-products of MUB projectors. An example of qubits is considered in detail. MUB tomography by means of the Stern-Gerlach apparatus is discussed.