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Physical Review E

Quantum-classical transition of the open quartic oscillator: The role of the environment

Adélcio C. Oliveira, J. G. Peixoto de Faria, Maria Carolina Nemes

Published Apr 20, 2006• 28 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We investigate the classical and quantum dynamics of the open quartic oscillator model. Typically quantum behavior such as collapses and revivals (also squeezing) are induced by the nonlinearity of the model. We show that purely diffusive environments, as expected, attenuate such phenomena. We obtain analytical results in both regimes classical and quantum and discuss the effect of a diffusive reservoir in the two cases. We show that "separation times" as usually defined in the literature are strongly observable (and initial condition) dependent, rendering a solid definition of a unique classical limit rather difficult. In particular, the separation time for the variance <Delta x> can be smaller than that for the expectation value of the position <x> of the centroid of the wave packet. We find a hierarchy of time scales which depends on the observable and the reservoir.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.73.046207

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We investigate the classical and quantum dynamics of the open quartic oscillator model. Typically quantum behavior such as collapses and revivals (also squeezing) are induced by the nonlinearity of the model. We show that purely diffusive environments, as expected, attenuate such phenomena. We obtain analytical results in both regimes classical and quantum and discuss the effect of a diffusive reservoir in the two cases. We show that "separation times" as usually defined in the literature are strongly observable (and initial condition) dependent, rendering a solid definition of a unique classical limit rather difficult. In particular, the separation time for the variance <Delta x> can be smaller than that for the expectation value of the position <x> of the centroid of the wave packet. We find a hierarchy of time scales which depends on the observable and the reservoir.
We discuss the roles of the macroscopic limit and different system-environment interactions in a quantum-classical transition for a chaotic system. We consider the kicked harmonic oscillator subject to reservoirs that correspond in the classical case to purely dissipative or purely diffusive behavior, a situation that can be implemented in ion trap experiments. In the dissipative case, we derive an expression for the time at which quantum and classical predictions become different (breaking time) and show that complete quantum-classical correspondence is not possible in the chaotic regime. For the diffusive environment we estimate the minimum value of the diffusion coefficient necessary to retrieve the classical limit and also show numerical evidence that, for diffusion below this threshold, the breaking time behaves, essentially, like that in the case of a system without a reservoir.
The correspondence principle is investigated in the framework of deterministic predictions for individual systems. Exact analytical results are obtained for the quantum and Liouvillian dynamics of a nonlinear oscillator coupled to a phase-damping reservoir at a finite temperature. In this context, the time of critical wave function spreading---the Ehrenfest time---emerges as the characteristic time scale within which the concept of deterministic behavior is admissible in physics. A scenario of quasideterminism may then be defined, within which the motion is experimentally indistinguishable from the truly deterministic motion of Newtonian mechanics. Beyond this time scale, predictions for individual systems can be given only statistically and, in this case, it is shown that diffusive decoherence is indeed a necessary ingredient to establish the quantum-classical correspondence. Moreover, the high-temperature regime is shown to be an additional condition for the quantum-classical transition and, accordingly, a lower bound for the reservoir temperature is derived for our model.
The introduction of nonlinearities in the Schrödinger equation has been considered in the literature as an effective manner to describe the action of external environments or mean fields. Here, in particular, we explore the nonlinear effects induced by subtracting a term proportional to Bohm’s quantum potential to the usual (linear) Schrödinger equation, which generates the so-called “classical” Schrödinger equation. Although a simple nonlinear transformation allows us to recover the well-known classical Hamilton–Jacobi equation, by combining a series of analytical results (in the limiting cases) and simulations (whenever the analytical treatment is unaffordable), we find an analytical explanation to why the dynamics in the nonlinear “classical” regime is still strongly nonclassical. This is even more evident by establishing a one-to-one comparison between the Bohmian trajectories associated with the corresponding wave function and the classical trajectories that one should obtain. Based on these observations, it is clear that the transition to a fully classical regime requires extra conditions in order to remove any trace of coherence, which is the truly distinctive trait of quantum mechanics. This behavior is investigated in three paradigmatic cases, namely, the dispersion of a free propagating localized particle, the harmonic oscillator, and a simplified version of Young’s two-slit experiment.
Treating the ideal coherent state as a reference state, the effects due to departure from coherence of an initial wave packet propagating through a nonlinear medium, were examined, specifically in the context of non-classical effects such as revivals, fractional revivals, squeezing and higher-order squeezing during its temporal evolution. Further, these studies were extended to examine the role of quantum entanglement in bipartite systems. The dynamics of quantum expectation values were tracked carefully in various cases and the conditions under which a wave packet spreads chaotically, were investigated.
We present the general solutions for the classical and quantum dynamics of the anharmonic oscillator coupled to a purely diffusive environment. In both cases, these solutions are obtained by the application of the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff (BCH) formulas to expand the evolution operator in an ordered product of exponentials. Moreover, we obtain an expression for the Wigner function in the quantum version of the problem. We observe that the role played by diffusion is to reduce or to attenuate the the characteristic quantum effects yielded by the nonlinearity, as the appearance of coherent superpositions of quantum states (Schr\\"{o}dinger cat states) and revivals.
We investigate the quantum entanglement dynamics of undriven anharmonic (nonlinear) oscillators with quartic potentials. We first consider the indirect interaction between two such nonlinear oscillators mediated by a third, linear oscillator and show that this leads to a time-varying entanglement of the oscillators, the entanglement being strongly influenced by the nonlinear oscillator dynamics. In the presence of dissipation, the role of nonlinearity is strongly manifested in the steady-state dynamics of the indirectly coupled anharmonic oscillators. We further illustrate the effect of nonlinearities by studying the coupling between an electromagnetic field in a cavity and one movable mirror which is modelled as a nonlinear oscillator. For this case, we present a full analytical treatment, which is valid in a regime where both the nonlinearity and the coupling due to radiation pressure are weak. We show that, without the need of any conditional measurements on the cavity field, the state of the movable mirror is non-classical as a result of the combined effect of the intrinsic nonlinearity and the radiation-pressure coupling. This interaction is also shown to be responsible for squeezing the movable mirror's position quadrature beyond the minimum uncertainty state even when the mirror is initially prepared in its ground state.