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arXiv:2606.18340

Chaos from quantum bath fluctuations

Ilan Baud, Tamoghna Ray, Mahaveer Prasad, Manas Kulkarni, Camille Aron

quant-phcond-mat.stat-mechnlin.CDSubmitted Jun 16, 2026• Announced Jun 18, 2026
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Abstract

The effect of a large environment on a finite-size quantum mechanical system is two-fold: It brings dissipation, but also fluctuations of thermal and quantum origin. While dissipation tends to stabilize the dynamics, we question if and how environmental quantum fluctuations can generate chaos in an otherwise classically non-chaotic system. We work out a paradigmatic model of quantum optics: the dissipative Dicke model, where a large spin interacts with a dissipative harmonic mode. We dial in the classical/quantum correspondence by working in the semiclassical regime at large but finite spin. We demonstrate that, starting from a classically regular phase space in the superradiant regime, quantum noise can generate a strange attractor with fractal dimension and a positive Lyapunov exponent. We unveil the deep connection with shear-induced chaos that was recently developed in the mathematical community.

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$4+ε$ pages + 14 pages of Appendix

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In classical mechanics, driven systems with dissipation often exhibit complex, fractal dynamics known as strange attractors. This paper addresses the fundamental question of how such structures manifest in the quantum realm. We investigate the quantum Duffing oscillator, a paradigmatic chaotic system, using the Caldirola-Kanai framework, where dissipation is integrated directly into a time-dependent Hamiltonian. By employing the Husimi distribution to represent the quantum state in phase space, we present the first visualization of a quantum strange attractor within this model. Our simulations demonstrate how an initially simple Gaussian wave packet is stretched, folded, and sculpted by the interplay of chaotic dynamics and energy loss, causing it to localize onto a structure that beautifully mirrors the classical attractor. This quantum "photograph" is inherently smoothed, blurring the infinitely fine fractal details of its classical counterpart as a direct consequence of the uncertainty principle. We supplement this analysis by examining the out-of-time-ordered correlator, which shows that stronger dissipation clarifies the exponential growth associated with the classical Lyapunov exponent, thereby confirming the model's semiclassical behavior. This work offers a compelling geometric perspective on open chaotic quantum systems and sheds new light on the quantum-classical transition.
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Recent studies have extensively explored chaotic dynamics in quantum optical systems through the mean-field approximation, which corresponds to an ideal, fluctuation-free scenario. However, the inherent sensitivity of chaos to initial conditions implies that even minute fluctuations can be amplified, thereby questioning the applicability of this approximation. Here, we analyze these chaotic effects using stochastic Langevin equations or the Lindblad master equation. For systems operating at frequencies of 10510^5105 to 10710^7107 Hz, we demonstrate that room-temperature thermal fluctuations are sufficient to suppress chaos at the level of expectation values, even under weak nonlinearity. Furthermore, nonlinearity induces deviations from Gaussian phase-space distributions of the quantum state, revealing attractor-like features in the Wigner function. With increasing nonlinearity, the noise threshold for chaos suppression decreases, approaching the scale of vacuum fluctuations. These results provide a bidirectional validation of the quantum mechanical suppression of chaos.