By formally generalizing the classical Hellinger distance and affinity on the space of probability densities, we introduce their quantum analog on the quantum state space consisting of all density operators. We show that the infinitesimal form of the quantum Hellinger distance is the skew information introduced by Wigner and Yanase in 1963. We compare the Hellinger distance and affinity with the Bures distance and fidelity, and establish a variety of their fundamental properties. We further apply them to characterizing entanglement and to establishing some unusual uncertainty relations relating nonsimultaneous measurements of a single observable in two different quantum states.

• Received 3 December 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.69.032106