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arXiv:2405.18564

Exploring the transition between Quantum and Classical Mechanics

E. Aldo Arroyo

Published May 28, 2024• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We investigate the transition from quantum to classical mechanics using a one-dimensional free particle model. In the classical analysis, we consider the initial positions and velocities of the particle drawn from Gaussian distributions. Since the final position of the particle depends on these initial conditions, convolving the Gaussian distributions associated with these initial conditions gives us the distribution of the final positions. In the quantum scenario, using an initial Gaussian wave packet, the temporal evolution provides the final wave function, and from it, the quantum probability density. We find that the quantum probability density coincides with the classical normal distribution of the particle's final position obtained from the convolution theorem. However, for superpositions of Gaussian distributions, the classical and quantum results deviate due to quantum interference. To address this issue, we propose a novel approach to recover the classical distribution from the quantum one. This approach involves removing the quantum interference effects through truncated Fourier analysis. These results are consistent with modern quantum decoherence theory. This comprehensive analysis enhances our understanding of the classical-quantum correspondence and the mechanisms underlying the emergence of classicality from quantum systems.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2405.18564

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We investigate the transition from quantum to classical mechanics using a one-dimensional free particle model. In the classical analysis, we consider the initial positions and velocities of the particle drawn from Gaussian distributions. Since the final position of the particle depends on these initial conditions, convolving the Gaussian distributions associated with these initial conditions gives us the distribution of the final positions. In the quantum scenario, using an initial Gaussian wave packet, the temporal evolution provides the final wave function, and from it, the quantum probability density. We find that the quantum probability density coincides with the classical normal distribution of the particle's final position obtained from the convolution theorem. However, for superpositions of Gaussian distributions, the classical and quantum results deviate due to quantum interference. To address this issue, we propose a novel approach to recover the classical distribution from the quantum one. This approach involves removing the quantum interference effects through truncated Fourier analysis. These results are consistent with modern quantum decoherence theory. This comprehensive analysis enhances our understanding of the classical-quantum correspondence and the mechanisms underlying the emergence of classicality from quantum systems.
We study a formulation of quantum mechanics in which the central notion is that of a quantum-mechanical history---a sequence of events at a succession of times. The primary aim is to identify sets of ``decoherent'' (or ``consistent'') histories for the system. These are quantum-mechanical histories suffering negligible interference with each other, and, therefore, to which probabilities may be assigned. These histories may be found for a given system using the so-called decoherence functional. When the decoherence functional is exactly diagonal, probabilities may be assigned to the histories, and all probability sum rules are satisfied exactly. We propose a condition for approximate decoherence, and argue that it implies that most probability sum rules will be satisfied to approximately the same degree. We also derive an inequality bounding the size of the off-diagonal terms of the decoherence functional. We calculate the decoherence functional for some simple one-dimensional systems, with a variety of initial states. For these systems, we explore the extent to which decoherence is produced using two different types of coarse graining. The first type of coarse graining involves imprecise specification of the particle's position. The second involves coupling the particle to a thermal bath of harmonic oscillators and ignoring the details of the bath (the Caldeira-Leggett model). We argue that both types of coarse graining are necessary in general. We explicitly exhibit the degree of decoherence as a function of the temperature of the bath, and of the width to within which the particle's position is specified. We study the diagonal elements of the decoherence functional, representing the probabilities for the possible histories of the system. To the extent that the histories decohere, we show that the probability distributions are peaked about the classical histories of the system, with the distribution of their initial positions and momenta given by a smeared version of the Wigner function. We discuss this result in connection with earlier uses of the Wigner function in this context. We find that there is a certain amount of tension between the demands of decoherence and peaking about classical paths.
The mechanism of the transition of a dynamical system from quantum to classical mechanics is one of the remaining challenges of quantum theory. Currently, it is considered to occur via decoherence caused by entanglement and/or stochastic interaction with a quantum environment. Here we prove that, in the absence of de-phasing environmental interaction, the asymptotic spatial wave function of any quantum system, propagating over distances and times large on an atomic scale but still microscopic, and subject to arbitrary deterministic fields, becomes proportional to the initial momentum wave function, \emph{where the particle positions and momenta are related by classical mechanics.} This implies that detection of particle positions and momenta at different times will yield results in accordance with classical mechanics, without the need to postulate decoherence of the wave function.
Decoherence theory explains how quantum mechanics gives rise to classical mechanics through the entanglement of a quantum system’s evolution with the degrees of freedom of the environment. The present article explores another pathway from the quantum to the classical behaviour. We consider a spinless particle interacting with a disordered landscape of potential energy. The matterwave evolution is handled within time-dependent quantum statistical mechanics, in which the wave function is replaced by a Wigner function defined in position-momentum space. Upon zooming out to scales exceeding the correlation length of the disorder, it is found that the description only involves the state populations as defined in classical statistical physics. Quantum coherence effects are significant only over smaller spatial scales, where they give rise to a noise superimposing on the classical description. The waning of coherence, which reflects the emergence of classicality, is due to the multiple scattering of matter waves; and the framework may be viewed as a stochastic wave mechanics.
Abstract The standard description of the transition from quantum to classical mechanics presented in most text books is the proof that the quantum expectation values of position and momentum obey equations of Newtonian form. This is the Ehrenfest theorem. It is combined with the requirement that wave packets remain localised to describe a single particle moving according to classical mechanics. Hence, the natural spreading of wave packets is viewed as a quantum effect. In contradiction to this view, here it is argued that the spreading, where different momentum components separate, is the signature of the quantum to classical transition. The asymptotic spatial wave function becomes proportional to the initial momentum space wave function, which mirrors exactly the well-known far-field diffraction pattern in optics. Trajectories, defined as the locus of the normals to the expanding wave front, are used to illustrate the transition from quantum to classical motion. Again this is the analogue of the wave to beam transition in optics. It is suggested that this analysis of the quantum to classical transition should be incorporated routinely into introductory quantum mechanics courses.
The evolution of the free-particle wave function in one dimension is the same as scalar Fresnel diffraction from a one-dimensional structure. Quantum mechanics courses often explore the propagation of Gaussian wave packets, but the diffractionlike mathematics is sufficiently tractable to investigate the propagation of other wave packets, both numerically and analytically. More importantly, the diffraction analogy facilitates the development of an intuitive understanding of the role that the initial phase plays in free-particle wave packet evolution. This article considers some of the effects of the initial phase function on the subsequent evolution of free-particle wave packets in the position representation. These considerations reinforce the idea that the classical mechanics limit embodied in the correspondence principle and formalized in the Ehrenfest theorem is necessarily an incomplete representation of quantum behavior.
In this paper, we develop a deterministic, physically constrained generative framework based on the Madelung formulation of the free-particle Schrödinger equation. A reference Born probability density and a controllable initial phase function serve as initial data for the free Madelung system, which couples the Born probability density and phase function through the Bohm quantum potential, while the phase function determines the hydrodynamic velocity field. Provided that the Born probability density remains positive and the hydrodynamic velocity field generates a unique global characteristic flow, samples drawn from the reference density and transported along the characteristic flow are distributed according to the evolving Born probability density at every time. As a consequence, randomness enters only through the initial sampling; the subsequent generation is deterministic and involves neither stochastic dynamics nor an independently parameterized time-dependent velocity field. We formulate terminal-time distribution matching as a PDE-constrained phase-identification problem and derive the underlying Hamiltonian and Fisher-information structure. For isotropic Gaussian wave packets, we obtain explicit dynamics and a necessary and sufficient condition for exact reachability of isotropic Gaussian targets by quadratic initial phase functions, together with the corresponding sampling map. For a smooth prescribed potential initial velocity field, we further establish that the characteristic flow approximates the associated first-order transport map with an O(T^2) error, both uniformly and in the 1- and 2-Wasserstein distances. A numerical Gaussian benchmark validates the fully discrete forward solver, while full-grid PDE-constrained phase identification is demonstrated for asymmetric bimodal targets.