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arXiv:1303.1973 · Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics

Orbital instability and the loss of quantum coherence

Allan Tameshtit, John E. Sipe

Published Feb 1, 1995• 4 citations
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Abstract

We compare quantum decoherence in generic regular and chaotic systems that interact with a thermal reservoir via a dipole coupling. Using a time-dependent, self-consistent approximation in the spirit of Hartree, we derive in the high temperature limit an expression for the off-diagonal elements of the system density operator that initially corresponds to a coherent superposition of two adjacent wave packets. We relate the decoherence rate to the Lyapunov exponent in the Ehrenfest regime. In this regime, the greater the instability of the system the faster the loss of coherence occurs.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.51.1582

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We compare quantum decoherence in generic regular and chaotic systems that interact with a thermal reservoir via a dipole coupling. Using a time-dependent, self-consistent approximation in the spirit of Hartree, we derive in the high temperature limit an expression for the off-diagonal elements of the system density operator that initially corresponds to a coherent superposition of two adjacent wave packets. We relate the decoherence rate to the Lyapunov exponent in the Ehrenfest regime. In this regime, the greater the instability of the system the faster the loss of coherence occurs.
We provide a path integral treatment of the decoherence process induced by a heat bath on a single particle whose dynamics is classically chaotic and show that the decoherence rate is given by the Lyapunov exponent. The loss of coherence is charaterized by the purity, which is calculated semiclassically within diagonal approximation, when the particle initial state is a single Gaussian wave packet. The calculation is performed for weak dissipation and in the high-temperature limit. This situation allows us to simplify the heat bath description to a single random potential. Although the dissipative term is neglected in such approach, the fluctuating one can be treated phenomenologically to fit with the above regime. Our results are therefore valid for times shorter than the inverse of the dissipation rate.
We use a recent result to show that the rate of loss of coherence of a quantum system increases with increasing system phase-space structure and that a chaotic quantal system in the semiclassical limit decoheres exponentially with rate $2{\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{2}$, where ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{2}$ is a generalized Lyapunov exponent. As a result, for example, the dephasing time for classically chaotic systems goes to infinity logarithmically with the temperature, in accord with recent experimental results.
The environment – external or internal degrees of freedom coupled to the system – can, in effect, monitor some of its observables. As a result, the eigenstates of these observables decohere and behave like classical states: Continuous destruction of superpositions leads to environment-induced superselection (einselection). Here I investigate it in the context of quantum chaos (i.e., quantum dynamics of systems which are classically chaotic). I show that the evolution of a chaotic macroscopic (but, ultimately, quantum) system is not just difficult to predict (requiring an accuracy exponentially increasing with time) but quickly ceases to be deterministic in principle as a result of the Heisenberg indeterminacy (which limits the resolution available in the initial conditions). This happens after a time t ℏ which is only logarithmic in the Planck constant. A definitely macroscopic (if somewhat outrageous) example is afforded by various components of the solar system which are chaotic, with the Lyapunov timescales ranging from a bit more than a month (Hyperion) to millions of years (planetary system as a whole). On the timescale t ℏ the initial minimum uncertainty wavepackets corresponding to celestial bodies would be smeared over distances of the order of radii of their orbits into “Schrödinger cat – like” states, and the concept of a trajectory would cease to apply. In reality, such paradoxical states are eliminated by decoherence which helps restore quantum-classical correspondence. The price for the recovery of classicality is the loss of predictability: In the classical limit (associated with effective decoherence, and not just with the smallness of ℏ) the rate of increase of the von Neumann entropy of the decohering system is independent of the strength of the coupling to the environment, and equal to the sum of the positive Lyapunov exponents. Algorithmic aspects of entropy production are briefly explored to illustrate the effect of decoherence from the point of view of the observer. We show that “decoherence strikes twice”, introducing unpredictability into the system and extracting quantum coherence from the observers memory, where it enters as a price for the classicality of his records.
The quantum correspondence of one particular signature of classical chaos--the exponential instability of motion--can be characterized by the initial exponential growth rate of the spreading of the propagating quantum wave packet. The growth rate is approximately twice the classical maximum Lyapunov exponent of the system. In the regular case, the dispersion of the wave packet is only due to the usual quantum effect that should vanish in the classical limit. In contrast, in the chaotic case, the evolution behavior of the wave packet is due to the dynamical effect associated with the nonlinearity and persists as long as the spatial extension of the initial wave packet is kept finite.
We initiate a study of rates of quantum decoherence in regular and chaotic systems. The system of interest investigated is quite general, and the interaction with the surroundings is via a particular quantum-nondemolition coupling. We find that the averaged coherence, as measured by Tr${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\rho}}}^{2}$(t), decays faster asymptotically in chaotic than in regular systems; this is a direct result of the repulsion of energy levels in the former case. We also investigate the phenomenon of self-averaging, providing general conditions that ensure that averaged and unaveraged quantities, such as Tr${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\rho}}}^{2}$(t), coincide. We find good agreement between our analytic results and those obtained numerically for the circle and stadium billiards.
Making use of appropriate quantum-classical correspondence we have examined the differential behavior of regular and chaotic trajectories in terms of quantum decoherence, the evolution of average quantities, and variances and entropy in a driven double-well oscillator in contact with the surroundings. Our numerical analysis has shown that even on a short time scale the decay of the average quantum coherence is multiexponential. While the onset of decoherence is much faster for a regular trajectory, the decay is faster asymptotically for a chaotic trajectory compared to a regular one. The coupling of the system to the environment turns chaotic in a regular evolution. The environment also affects the evolution of quantum variances for a regular trajectory almost from the beginning, while it has an insignificant effect on chaotic evolution up to a time after which, for both trajectories, noise in the quantum variances exhibits remarkable suppression, although fluctuations of the reservoir modes, in general, tend to increase the level of variances. We identify three stages of quantum evolution; a short decoherence regime followed by a Liouville flow, the latter regime being dominated by the classical curvature of the potential. This is the regime at which growth of entropy or quantum variances is exponential, the rate being determined by the classical largest Lyapunov exponent. The last stage is the irreversible flow dominated by diffusion which suppresses noises in the quantum variances. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.