The notion of microscopic state of the system at a given moment of time as a point in the phase space as well as a notion of trajectory is widely used in classical mechanics. However, it does not have an immediate physical meaning, since arbitrary real numbers are unobservable. This notion leads to the known paradoxes, such as the irreversibility problem. A “functional” formulation of classical mechanics is suggested. The physical meaning is attached in this formulation not to an individual trajectory but only to a “beam” of trajectories, or the distribution function on phase space. The fundamental equation of the microscopic dynamics in the functional approach is not the Newton equation but the Liouville equation for the distribution function of the single particle. The Newton equation in this approach appears as an approximate equation describing the dynamics of the average values and there are corrections to the Newton trajectories. We give a construction of probability density function starting from the directly observable quantities, i.e., the results of measurements, which are rational numbers.
The notion of microscopic state of the system at a given moment of time as a point in the phase space as well as a notion of trajectory is widely used in classical mechanics. However, it does not have an immediate physical meaning, since arbitrary real numbers are unobservable. This notion leads to the known paradoxes, such as the irreversibility problem. A “functional” formulation of classical mechanics is suggested. The physical meaning is attached in this formulation not to an individual trajectory but only to a “beam” of trajectories, or the distribution function on phase space. The fundamental equation of the microscopic dynamics in the functional approach is not the Newton equation but the Liouville equation for the distribution function of the single particle. The Newton equation in this approach appears as an approximate equation describing the dynamics of the average values and there are corrections to the Newton trajectories. We give a construction of probability density function starting from the directly observable quantities, i.e., the results of measurements, which are rational numbers.
The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics assumes the existence of the classical deterministic Newtonian world. We argue that in fact the Newton determinism in classical world does not hold and in classical mechanics there is fundamental and irreducible randomness. The classical Newtonian trajectory does not have a direct physical meaning since arbitrary real numbers are not observable. There are classical uncertainty relations, i.e. the uncertainty (errors of observation) in the determination of coordinate and momentum is always positive (non zero). A "functional" formulation of classical mechanics was suggested. The fundamental equation of the microscopic dynamics in the functional approach is not the Newton equation but the Liouville equation for the distribution function of the single particle. Solutions of the Liouville equation have the property of delocalization which accounts for irreversibility. The Newton equation in this approach appears as an approximate equation describing the dynamics of the average values of the position and momenta for not too long time intervals. Corrections to the Newton trajectories are computed. An interpretation of quantum mechanics is attempted in which both classical and quantum mechanics contain fundamental randomness. Instead of an ensemble of events one introduces an ensemble of observers.
Nonintegrable Poincaré systems with continuous spectrum (so-called Large Poincaré Systems, LPS) lead to the appearance of diffusive terms in the framework of dynamics. These terms break time symmetry. They lead, therefore, to limitations to classical trajectory dynamics and of wave functions. These diffusive terms correspond to well-defined classes of dynamical processes (i.e., so-called “vacuum-vacuum” transitions). The diffusive effects are amplified in situations corresponding to persistent interactions. As a result, we have to include already in the fundamental dynamical description the two aspects, probability and irreversibility, which are so conspicuous on the macroscopic level. We have to formulate both classical and quantum mechanics on the Liouville level of probability distributions (or density matrices). For integrable systems, we recover the usual formulations of classical or quantum mechanics. Instead of being irreducible concepts, which cannot be further analyzed, trajectories and wave functions appear as special solutions of the Liouville-von Neumann equations. This extension of classical and quantum dynamics permits us to unify the two concepts of nature we inherited from the 19th century, based on the one hand on dynamical time-reversible laws and on the other on an evolutionary view associated to entropy. It leads also to a unified formulation of quantum theory avoiding the conventional dual structure based on Schrödinger’s equation on the one hand, and on the “collapse” of the wave function on the other. A dynamical interpretation is given to processes such as decoherence or approach to equilibrium without any appeal to extra dynamic considerations (such as the many-world theory, coarse graining or averaging over the environment). There is a striking parallelism between classical and quantum theory. For LPS we have, in general, both a “collapse” of trajectories and of wave functions for LPS. In both cases, we need a generalized formulation of dynamics in terms of probability distributions or density matrices. Since the beginning of this century, we know that classical mechanics had to be generalized to take into account the existence of universal constants. We now see that classical as well as quantum mechanics also have to be extended to include unstable dynamical systems such as LPS. As a result, we achieve a new formulation of "laws of physics" dealing no more with certitudes but with probabilities. The formulation is appropriate to describe an open, evolving universe.
We address the paradoxical transformation of a classical-mechanical particle motion when the space and time scales of observation pass below the uncertainty principle threshold. This is analyzed in the language of classical statistical mechanics, considering specifically many-particle systems inhomogeneous along one spatial direction. We employ the density functional formalism in its square-gradient form and find: (i) The macroscopic solution is analogous to the classical trajectory of a particle under a potential of force given by (minus) the free energy density. Whereas, (ii) fluctuations around the solution in (i) are equal to the quantum-mechanical wave functions of a particle under a potential given by the curvature of the free energy density. We illustrate this situation with three textbook examples: A particle in a box, the harmonic oscillator, and the hydrogen atom. We show that their time-independent Schrödinger equation wave functions describe, respectively, the fluctuations of a fluid interface, of critical point fluctuations, and of a confined ideal gas. At large scales, sharp probability distributions make fluctuations irrelevant; the vanishing of the first variation yields the macroscopically observable statistical-mechanical non-uniformity, equivalent to the classical particle trajectory. But at sufficiently small scales, with necessarily very few particles, distributions appear much wider, fluctuations dominate, and one obtains the Schrödinger equation (for the microscopic potential).
The starting point of the classical description of motion is the Newton equations that yield a phase space trajectory (rN (t), pN (t)) for a given initial condition (rN (0), pN (0)). Alternatively one may describe classical motion in the framework of the Liouville equation (Section (1.2.2)) that describes the time evolution of the phase space probability density f (rN , pN ; t). For a closed system fully described in terms of a well specified initial condition, the two descriptions are completely equivalent. Probabilistic treatment becomes essential in reduced descriptions that focus on parts of an overall system, as was demonstrated in Sections 5.1–5.3 for equilibrium systems, and in Chapters 7 and 8 that focus on the time evolution of classical systems that interact with their thermal environments. This chapter deals with the analogous quantum mechanical problem. Within the limitations imposed by its nature as expressed, for example, by Heisenbergtype uncertainty principles, the Schrödinger equation is deterministic. Obviously it describes a deterministic evolution of the quantum mechanical wavefunction. The analog of the phase space probability density f (rN , pN ; t) is now the quantum mechanical density operator (often referred to as the “density matrix”), whose time evolution is determined by the quantum Liouville equation. Again, when the system is fully described in terms of a well specified initial wavefunction, the two descriptions are equivalent. The density operator formalism can, however, be carried over to situations where the initial state of the system is not well characterized and/or a reduced description of part of the overall system is desired. Such situations are considered later in this chapter.
Recently, the Fokker-Planck (F-P) equation, satisfied by the phase-space distribution function of a Brownian (B) particle, has been derived from the Liouville equation, satisfied by the phase-space distribution function of the composite system, B particle plus fluid. We have started from a strictly quantum-mechanical formulation of the problem, using a density-matrix description of the composite system, and have shown that in an appropriate classical limit the F-P equation results. To lowest order in $\ensuremath{\hbar}$, our technique gives the same expression for the friction coefficient obtained earlier from the Liouville equation. In principle it yields corrections to the F-P equation to all orders in $\ensuremath{\hbar}$. We have shown that for a uniform fluid, the quantum corrections to the F-P equation to first order in $\ensuremath{\hbar}$ appear only as a shift in the friction coefficient. If the classical friction coefficient ${\ensuremath{\zeta}}_{0}$ is replaced by ${\ensuremath{\zeta}}_{0}+\ensuremath{\hbar}{\ensuremath{\zeta}}_{1}$, with an appropriate ${\ensuremath{\zeta}}_{1}$, then the F-P equation is given correctly to order $\ensuremath{\hbar}$. There is a difference in the mass dependence of ${\ensuremath{\zeta}}_{0}$ and ${\ensuremath{\zeta}}_{1}$ which suggests the existence of an isotope effect in the mobility of a particle moving through a quantum fluid. The technique employed in the derivation is to consider the expectation value of the density matrix of the system in a state in which the position and momentum of the particles are known with maximum accuracy (Kennard packet). This expectation value $\ensuremath{\mu}$ is an appropriate, positive, semiclassical phase-space distribution function. An appropriate equation is derived for $\ensuremath{\mu}$, which to lowest order in $\ensuremath{\hbar}$ is the Liouville equation. The remainder of the derivation is similar to the derivation in the classical case (a suitable projection technique is used).