The problem ``what is the quantum signature of a classically chaotic system'' is studied for the periodically kicked top. We find that the quantum variances initially grow exponentially if the corresponding classical description is chaotic. The rate of growth is connected to the corresponding classical Jacobi matrix and, thereby, to the local, classical, transient expansion rate. These connections were recently established in an analysis of the kicked pendulum for the correspondence between quantum Husimi-O'Connell-Wigner distributions and classical Gaussian ensembles. Here, we present closely related results for the kicked top by using generalized coherent states. An explanation is given for why this quantum signature of classical chaos was missed in earlier studies of the kicked top.
The problem ``what is the quantum signature of a classically chaotic system'' is studied for the periodically kicked top. We find that the quantum variances initially grow exponentially if the corresponding classical description is chaotic. The rate of growth is connected to the corresponding classical Jacobi matrix and, thereby, to the local, classical, transient expansion rate. These connections were recently established in an analysis of the kicked pendulum for the correspondence between quantum Husimi-O'Connell-Wigner distributions and classical Gaussian ensembles. Here, we present closely related results for the kicked top by using generalized coherent states. An explanation is given for why this quantum signature of classical chaos was missed in earlier studies of the kicked top.
The behavior of the periodically kicked pendulum is determined classically and quantum mechanically. Our earlier analytic study [Phys. Rev. A 41, 2952 (1990)] is confirmed and extended by the numerical results presented here. We are able to construct minimum uncertainty, Gaussian wave packets that maintain their form, and shadow the corresponding classical motion for long times when the classical motion is nonchaotic or only weakly chaotic. However, when the classical motion is robustly chaotic, the quantum-mechanical probability distribution grows macroscopically broad exponentially fast and the quantum-classical correspondence breaks down.
We analyze the interplay of chaos, entanglement, and decoherence in a system of qubits whose collective behavior is that of a quantum kicked top. The dynamical entanglement between a single qubit and the rest can be calculated from the mean of the collective spin operators. This allows the possibility of efficiently measuring entanglement dynamics in an experimental setting. We consider a deeply quantum regime and show that signatures of chaos are present in the dynamical entanglement for parameters accessible in an experiment that we propose using cold atoms. The evolution of the entanglement depends on the support of the initial state on regular versus chaotic Floquet eigenstates, whose phase-space distributions are concentrated on the corresponding regular or chaotic eigenstructures. We include the effect of decoherence via a realistic model and show that the signatures of chaos in the entanglement dynamics persist in the presence of decoherence. In addition, the classical chaos affects the decoherence rate itself.
The quantum kicked top (QKT) is one of the most widely studied models in quantum chaos, providing a minimal yet powerful framework for exploring the relationship between classical nonlinear dynamics and quantum behavior. Unlike many chaotic systems with infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, the QKT possesses a finite-dimensional Hilbert space, making it analytically and numerically controllable while still showing a rich dynamical phenomena. In this chapter, we present a comprehensive introduction to the QKT as a paradigmatic model of quantum chaos. Starting from the classical kicked top, we derive the discrete nonlinear map governing the dynamics on the unit sphere and analyze its phase space structure through fixed points, stability analysis, bifurcations and Lyapunov exponents. We then discuss the role of symmetries, including rotational and time-reversal symmetry, and how their breaking modifies the dynamics. The quantum description is developed using Floquet theory, where the periodically driven spin system is represented by a unitary Floquet operator acting on a (2j+1)-dimensional Hilbert space. Within this framework, signatures of quantum chaos such as spectral statistics, entanglement generation and recurrences are discussed. The model also admits an interpretation as a system of interacting qubits, enabling explicit few-qubit realizations and direct connections with quantum information measures through reduced density matrices and entanglement entropy. By linking classical phase space structures with quantum dynamical indicators, the QKT provides a clear setting to investigate the emergence of chaotic behavior in the semiclassical limit. The chapter, therefore, highlights the quantum kicked top as a bridge between nonlinear classical dynamics, quantum chaos and modern quantum information science.
Quantum chaos is the study of quantum systems whose classical description is chaotic. How does chaos manifest itself in the quantum world? In this spirit, we study the dynamical generation of entanglement as a signature of chaos in a system of periodically kicked coupled-tops, where chaos and entanglement arise from the same physical mechanism. The long-time entanglement as a function of the position of an initially localized wave packet very closely correlates with the classical phase space surface of section - it is nearly uniform in the chaotic sea, and reproduces the detailed structure of the regular islands. The uniform value in the chaotic sea is explained by the random state conjecture. As classically chaotic dynamics take localized distributions in phase space to random distributions, quantized versions take localized coherent states to pseudo-random states in Hilbert space. Such random states are highly entangled, with an average value near that of the maximally entangled state. Continuing on our journey to find the footprints of chaos in the quantum world, we explore quantum signatures of classical chaos by studying the rate of information gain in quantum tomography. We find an increase in the rate of information gain and hence higher fidelities in the process when the Floquet maps employed increase in chaoticity. We make predictions for the information gain using random matrix theory in the fully chaotic regime and show a remarkable agreement between the two. The last part of this thesis is devoted to the study of the nature of quantum correlations themselves. We present an operational interpretation of quantum discord based on the quantum state merging protocol. Quantum discord is the markup in the cost of quantum communication in the process of quantum state merging, if one discards relevant prior information.
This dissertation sets out to examine some fundamental open questions in quantum physics regarding quantum-classical correspondence in regular versus chaotic systems. Specifically, we study these questions using approaches in quantum information science in an experimentally realized textbook model of quantum chaos - the quantum kicked top (QKT). \n \nThe effect of classical chaos on the generation of entanglement in spin systems has been a field of active research for a couple of decades. Whether high entanglement in these systems is a hallmark of chaos or not remains a widely debated topic. We explain the connection between entanglement and chaos in spin systems and resolve previous conflicting results. The previous studies have mostly drawn conclusions from numerical work on a few initial states in regular versus chaotic regions. We instead focus on stable and unstable periodic orbits because chaos emerges around unstable periodic orbits. We first propose a new set of criteria for determining whether quantum evolution will correspond to the classical trajectory in a localized manner at stable periodic orbits in periodically driven systems. These criteria can be used to calculate the quantum numbers that will lead to quantum-classical correspondence even in a deep quantum regime, and thus to quantify the well-known Bohr correspondence principle. Next, we analytically show a direct connection between entanglement generation and a measure of delocalization of a quantum state in spin systems. More concretely, we describe a method to calculate an upper bound on entanglement generation in any bipartition of spin systems, where the upper bound is a function of trace distance between the evolved state and the most localized classical-like separable states. This method along with our criteria for localized evolution enables us to explain the behaviour of entanglement in both deep quantum and semiclassical regimes for regular as well as chaotic regions. Hence, our analysis resolves the long-standing debates regarding the connection between classical chaos and quantum entanglement in deep quantum and semiclassical regimes. \n \nIn addition to the study of entanglement, we perform the first study of nonlocality, and the effect of chaos on its generation in the QKT. Since nonlocality and entanglement are inequivalent quantum resources, the effect of chaos on nonlocality merits an explicit study. Violations of Bell inequalities in the presence of spacelike separation among the subsystems imply nonlocality - meaning nonlocal correlations between subsystems of the total spin system. We show that the QKT evolution can lead to states that violate multiqubit Bell inequalities and hence provides a deterministic method to prepare nonlocal quantum states. Our numerical results suggest a correlation between delocalized evolution of a pure quantum state and generation of nonlocality in the quantum state. We further demonstrate that dynamical tunnelling - a classically forbidden phenomenon - in the QKT leads to the generation of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ)-like states for even numbers of qubits. We analytically prove that these states are maximally nonlocal. On the other hand, we numerically show that any reduced state of the QKT obtained by tracing out a subsystem of the total spin system does not violate Bell inequalities. We provide an analytical explanation of the numerical results for 2−qubit reduced states by formulating and proving two general theorems regarding 2−qubit Bell inequalities. These theorems imply that any 2−qubit mixed state having a symmetric extension or symmetric purification cannot violate the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality. This highlights fundamental connections between two important and distinct concepts in quantum information science - Bell inequalities and symmetric extension of quantum states. \n \nApart from providing deeper insights into the fundamental questions of quantum-classical correspondence and new approaches to analyze quantum chaos, the methods developed in this thesis can be used to design quantum systems that can efficiently generate entanglement and nonlocality. Thus, our results could have interesting applications in quantum computing and quantum information science.
Quantum chaos, a phenomenon that began to be studied in the last century, still does not have a rigorous understanding. By virtue of the correspondence principle, the properties of the system that lead to chaotic dynamics at the classical level must also be present in the underlying quantum system. In the classical case, the exponential divergence of nearby trajectories in time is described in terms of the Lyapunov exponent. However, in the quantum case, a similar description of chaos is, strictly speaking, impossible due to the absence of trajectories. There are different approaches to remedy this situation, but the universal criterion of quantum chaos is absent. We propose a quantum chaos definition in a manner similar to the classical one using decoherent histories as a quantum analog of trajectories. For this purpose, we consider the model of an open quantum kicked top interacting with the environment, which is a bosonic bath, and illustrate this idea. Here, the environment plays the role of a trajectory-recording device. For the kicked-top model at the classical level, depending on the kick strength, crossover occurs between the integrable and chaotic regimes. We show that for such a model, the production of entropy of decoherent histories is radically different in integrable and chaotic regimes. Thus, the entropy of an ensemble of quantum trajectories can be used as a signature of quantum chaos.