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arXiv:0808.3243 · Physical Review E

How complex is quantum motion?

Giuliano Benenti, Giulio Casati

Published Feb 24, 2009• 43 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In classical mechanics the complexity of a dynamical system is characterized by the rate of local exponential instability which effaces the memory of initial conditions and leads to practical irreversibility. In striking contrast, quantum mechanics appears to exhibit strong memory of the initial state. Here we introduce a notion of complexity for a quantum system and relate it to its stability and reversibility properties.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.79.025201

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In classical mechanics the complexity of a dynamical system is characterized by the rate of local exponential instability which effaces the memory of initial conditions and leads to practical irreversibility. In striking contrast, quantum mechanics appears to exhibit strong memory of the initial state. Here we introduce a notion of complexity for a quantum system and relate it to its stability and reversibility properties.
In classical mechanics the local exponential instability effaces the memory of initial conditions and leads to practical irreversibility. In striking contrast, quantum mechanics appears to exhibit strong memory of the initial state. We relate the latter fact to the low (at most linear) rate with which the system's Wigner function gets during the evolution a more and more complicated structure and we establish the existence of a critical strength of external influence below which such a memory still survives.
We present a quantitative analysis of the reversibility properties of classically chaotic quantum motion. We analyze the connection between reversibility and the rate at which a quantum state acquires a more and more complicated structure in its time evolution. This complexity is characterized by the number M(t) of harmonics of the [initially isotropic, i.e., M(0)=0 ] Wigner function, which are generated during quantum evolution for the time t . We show that, in contrast to the classical exponential increase, this number can grow not faster than linearly and then relate this fact with the degree of reversibility of the quantum motion. To explore the reversibility we reverse the quantum evolution at some moment T immediately after applying at this moment an instant perturbation governed by a strength parameter xi . It follows that there exists a critical perturbation strength xic approximately sqrt 2/M(T) below which the initial state is well recovered, whereas reversibility disappears when xi > or approximately xic(T) . In the classical limit the number of harmonics proliferates exponentially with time and the motion becomes practically irreversible. The above results are illustrated in the example of the kicked quartic oscillator model.
Arguments are presented for the viewpoint that irreversibility is inherent in quanturn mechanics, irrespective of the number of particles participating. This fact is related to the notion of transition–ramifying evolution–which is characteristic of quantum mechanics. It is in contrast to classical mechanics based on the notion of orbit, where the irreversibility arises only as the result of a large number of particles or a certain complexity of the system. The statistical assumption needed for the derivation of irreversibility in classical mechanics is absorbed into the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, and is revived as inherent irreversibility. The statements conform with the parallelism of quantum mechanics and classical statistical mechanics emphasized in a previous report.
The question of how irreversibility can emerge as a generic phenomenon when the underlying mechanical theory is reversible has been a long-standing fundamental problem for both classical and quantum mechanics. We describe a mechanism for the appearance of irreversibility that applies to coherent, isolated systems in a pure quantum state. This equilibration mechanism requires only an assumption of sufficiently complex internal dynamics and natural information-theoretic constraints arising from the infeasibility of collecting an astronomical amount of measurement data. Remarkably, we are able to prove that irreversibility can be understood as typical without assuming decoherence or restricting to coarse-grained observables, and hence occurs under distinct conditions and time scales from those implied by the usual decoherence point of view. We illustrate the effect numerically in several model systems and prove that the effect is typical under the standard random-matrix conjecture for complex quantum systems.
The nature of classically chaotic quantum dynamics is studied by menas of a numerical time reversal experiment. It turns out that there is a fundamental quantum scale below which the system cannot exhibit classical irreversibility to external perturbations. On the other hand, a paradoxical phenomenon manifesting that quantum irreversibility may exceed its classical counterpart is discovered. These features are explained in terms of semicalssical dynamical theory. Introduction Classically chaotic quantum systems in general can exhibit intrinsinc chaotic behaviour on a quite restricted time scale [1], In particular localization phenomena provide direct evidence exhibiting the suppression of quantum ergodicity [2]. On the other hand, recent studies reveal that a many-dimensional system can mimic some aspects peculiar to chaotic dynamics quite well on an unexpectedly long time scale [3]. A remarkable feature that distinguishes chaotic motion from integrable motion is the sensitive dependence of dynamics on external perturbations. For classical dynamical systems such a sensitivity can be well defined by measuring how two nearby trajectories in the phase space separate in time. However, there has been proposed no systematic way to examine the sensitivity of quantum dynamics to external perturbation. In quantum dynamics, it is not possible to trace a well defined trajectory in phase space, because both quantum uncertainty and chaotic instability make a localized wavepacket spread suddenly over the phase space [4]. There is, however, a simple way in which we may test the quantum sensitivity quantitively. This is the time reversal experiment described below. In this chapter I describe several remarkable characteristics of quantal instability which have been clarified by the time reversal experiment.
The study of the quantum–classical correspondence has been focused on the quantum measurement problem. However, most of the discussion in the preceding chapters is motivated by a broader question: Why do we perceive our quantum Universe as classical? Therefore, emergence of the classical phase space and Newtonian dynamics from the quantum Hilbert space must be addressed. Chapter 6 starts by re-deriving decoherence rate for non-local superpositions using the Wigner representation of quantum states. We then discuss the circumstances that, in some situations, make classical points a useful idealization of the quantum states of many-body systems. This classical structure of phase space emerges along with the (at least approximately reversible) Newtonian equations of motion. Approximate reversibility is a non-trivial desideratum given that the quantum evolution of the corresponding open system is typically irreversible. We show when such approximately reversible evolution is possible. We also discuss quantum counterparts of classically chaotic systems and show that, as a consequence of decoherence, their evolution tends to be fundamentally irreversible: They produce entropy at the rate determined by the Lyapunov exponents that characterize classical chaos. Thus, quantum decoherence provides a rigorous rationale for the approximations that led to Boltzmann’s H-theorem.