Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Cambridge University Press eBooks

Quantum chaos and vectorial interactions

H. M. Fried

Published Oct 10, 2002• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The possibility of quantum chaos for vectorial interactions is here described in some detail, along with its apparent suppression when the radiative corrections of quantum field theory (quantum fluctuations of the classical, “external” electromagnetic field) are introduced. Based on these quantum-mechanical ideas, an application is made to classical-chaotic systems, of perhaps the simplest form – a forced Duffing model, without damping – where it is found that the chaos is first suppressed and then (apparently) removed by introducing couplings to random and/or chaotic sources. This may be characterized as “quantum mechanics with ħ ∼ 1”, and suggests a brute-force method by which the chaos of a classical system may be at least diminished. A similar effect is noted for a different classical system that displays chaos – a pair of coupled oscillators – independently of any external forcing. First-quantization chaos The reader is now asked to return to the G c [ A ] representations for vectorial interactions of the previous chapter; for simplicity, the arguments of this chapter are presented only for QED in a relativistic context, but have obvious generalizations to non-relativistic QED, and to relativistic QCD. The map (5.31) defines the quantity Ω μ ( s′ ), which is needed for the explicit solution of (5.33). It is the existence of such a map which carries with it the inescapable possibility of chaotic behavior, at least in the present context of vectorial interactions in potential theory. The analysis used here is given directly in terms of proper time τ, of which x μ (τ) is a function.

DOI
10.1017/cbo9780511535079.007

Related papers

Vectorial Interactions and Quantum Chaos

H. M. Fried, Y. Gabellini, Bruce H. J. McKellar

Vectorial interactions (e.g., QED) introduce the possibility of chaos into new, nonperturbative Green's function representations of potential theory. The full, radiative corrections of quantum field theory, however, remove such chaos in an explicit example of ``environment-induced decoherence.''

Physical Review Letters•May 29, 1995•7 citations

Hamiltonian Chaos III

Niraj Srivastava, Charles Kaufman, Gerhard H. Muller

Does quantum chaos exist?If it exists, what is it?If it does not, what was it supposed to have been?Why should we associate chaos with a "third revolution in physics" if it fails to be expressible in terms of quantum mechanics, our most fundamental theory of physical reality?Is there something wrong with quantum mechanics?Or is chaos merely a mathematical construct relevant only for models in classical mechanics?Is the human mind doomed to interpret and understand quantum mechanics in classical terms?The list of unanswered questions in quantum chaos research itself shows symptoms of the phenomenon it attempts to grasp. 1 How do we recognize classical Hamiltonian chaos?We have dealt with this question in our two previous columns.2,3 In Part I we discussed the implications of integrability and non-integrability for the phase-space trajectories of classical Hamiltonian systems with two degrees of freedom.We described the method of Poincaré surfaces of section as a convenient and striking discriminant between the two possibilities.In Part II we searched for an alternate mode of representation for classical Hamiltonian systems, a mode that is an equally powerful indicator of chaos, but one that can be more directly translated into quantum mechanics than the Poincaré map.We proposed a representation based on the construction of classical invariants via time averages of dynamical variables, a representation that can be employed under very general circumstances including integrable and nonintegrable models.In this column we shall construct quantum invariants, demonstrate the impact of non-integrability on these quantities, and discuss their properties in relation to their classical counterparts.In a future column we intend to introduce quantum Poincaré surfaces of section for stationary states and bring full circle our survey of quantum and classical Hamiltonian chaos.Consider a quantized integrable model.Its eigenstates are labeled by quantum numbers.There are as many quantum numbers as there are degrees of freedom.Each quantum number represents a quantized action.In the still evolving language of quantum chaos, quantum numbers are said to have been "lost" in the transition from a quantum system whose classical counterpart is integrable to one whose counterpart is chaotic.The broken, or lost, tori of classical chaos become lost quantum numbers of quantum chaos.As we shall see, the loss of quantum numbers is vividly mirrored in the behavior of the quantum invariants.We begin by describing the construction of the quantum invariants for a

Computers in Physics•Jan 1, 1992•3 citations

The Emergence of Chaos in Quantum Mechanics

Emilio Fiordilino

Nonlinearity in Quantum Mechanics may have extrinsic or intrinsic origins and is a liable route to a chaotic behaviour that can be of difficult observations. In this paper, we propose two forms of nonlinear Hamiltonian, which explicitly depend upon the phase of the wave function and produce chaotic behaviour. To speed up the slow manifestation of chaotic effects, a resonant laser field assisting the time evolution of the systems causes cumulative effects that might be revealed, at least in principle. The nonlinear Schrödinger equation is solved within the two-state approximation; the solution displays features with characteristics similar to those found in chaotic Classical Mechanics: sensitivity on the initial state, dense power spectrum, irregular filling of the Poincaré map and exponential separation of the trajectories of the Bloch vector σ in the Bloch sphere.

Symmetry•May 8, 2020•5 citations

Quantum Chaos as an Essential Resource for Full Quantum State Controllability

Lukas Beringer, Mathias Steinhuber, Klaus Richter +1 more

Using the key properties of chaos, i.e. ergodicity and exponential instability, as a resource to control classical dynamics has a long and considerable history. However, in the context of controlling "chaotic" quantum unitary dynamics, the situation is far more tenuous. The classical concepts of exponential sensitivity to trajectory initial conditions and ergodicity do not directly translate into quantum unitary evolution. Nevertheless properties inherent to quantum chaos can take on those roles: i) the dynamical sensitivity to weak perturbations, measured by the fidelity decay, serves a similar purpose as the classical sensitivity to initial conditions; and ii) paired with the fact that quantum chaotic systems are conjectured to be statistically described by random matrix theory, implies a method to translate the ergodic feature into the control of quantum dynamics. With those two properties, it can be argued that quantum chaotic dynamical systems, in principle, allow for full controllability beyond a characteristic time that scales only logarithmically with system size and $\hbar^{-1}$. In the spirit of classical targeting, it implies that it is possible to fine tune the immense quantum interference with weak perturbations and steer the system from any initial state into any desired target state, subject to constraints imposed by conserved quantities. In contrast, integrable dynamics possess neither ergodicity nor exponential instability, and thus the weak perturbations apparently must break the integrability for control purposes. The main ideas are illustrated with the quantum kicked rotor. The production of revivals, cat-like entangled states, and the transition from any random state to any other random state is possible as demonstrated.

quant-pharXiv:2512.13384•Dec 16, 2025•0 citations

Applications of the Decoherence Formalism

Todd A. Brun

In this work the decoherence formalism of quantum mechanics is explored and applied to a number of interesting problems in quantum physics. The boundary between quantum and classical physics is examined, and demonstration made that quantum histories corresponding to classical equations of motion become more probable for a broad class of models, including linear and nonlinear models of Brownian motion. The link between noise, dissipation, and decoherence is studied. This work is then applied to systems which classically exhibit dissipative chaotic dynamics. A theory is explicated for treating these systems, and the ideas are applied to a particular model of the forced, damped Duffing oscillator, which is chaotic for certain parameter values. Differences between classical and quantum chaos are examined, particularly differences arising in the structure of fractal strange attractors, and the conceptual difficulties in framing standard notions of chaos in a quantum system. A brief discussion of previous work on quantum chaos is included, and the differences between Hamiltonian and dissipative chaos pointed out; a somewhat different interpretation of quantum chaos from the standard one is suggested. A class of histories for quantum systems, in phase space rather than configuration space, is studied. Different ways of representing projections in phase space are discussed, and expressions for the probability of phase space histories are derived; conditions for such histories to decohere are also estimated in the semiclassical limit.

•Mar 16, 2009•4 citations

An Example of the Decoherence Approach to Quantum Dissipative Chaos

Todd A. Brun

Quantum chaos---the study of quantized nonintegrable Hamiltonian systems---is an extremely well-developed and sophisticated field. By contrast, very little work has been done in looking at quantum versions of systems which classically exhibit {\\it dissipative} chaos. Using the decoherence formalism of Gell-Mann and Hartle, I find a quantum mechanical analog of one such system, the forced damped Duffing oscillator. I demonstrate the classical limit of the system, and discuss its decoherent histories. I show that using decoherent histories, one can define not only the quantum map of an entire density operator, but can find an analog to the Poincar\\'e map of the individual trajectory. Finally, I argue the usefulness of this model as an example of quantum dissipative chaos, as well as of a practical application of the decoherence formalism to an interesting problem.

•Aug 24, 1995•4 citations
The possibility of quantum chaos for vectorial interactions is here described in some detail, along with its apparent suppression when the radiative corrections of quantum field theory (quantum fluctuations of the classical, “external” electromagnetic field) are introduced. Based on these quantum-mechanical ideas, an application is made to classical-chaotic systems, of perhaps the simplest form – a forced Duffing model, without damping – where it is found that the chaos is first suppressed and then (apparently) removed by introducing couplings to random and/or chaotic sources. This may be characterized as “quantum mechanics with ħ ∼ 1”, and suggests a brute-force method by which the chaos of a classical system may be at least diminished. A similar effect is noted for a different classical system that displays chaos – a pair of coupled oscillators – independently of any external forcing. First-quantization chaos The reader is now asked to return to the G c [ A ] representations for vectorial interactions of the previous chapter; for simplicity, the arguments of this chapter are presented only for QED in a relativistic context, but have obvious generalizations to non-relativistic QED, and to relativistic QCD. The map (5.31) defines the quantity Ω μ ( s′ ), which is needed for the explicit solution of (5.33). It is the existence of such a map which carries with it the inescapable possibility of chaotic behavior, at least in the present context of vectorial interactions in potential theory. The analysis used here is given directly in terms of proper time τ, of which x μ (τ) is a function.
Does quantum chaos exist?If it exists, what is it?If it does not, what was it supposed to have been?Why should we associate chaos with a "third revolution in physics" if it fails to be expressible in terms of quantum mechanics, our most fundamental theory of physical reality?Is there something wrong with quantum mechanics?Or is chaos merely a mathematical construct relevant only for models in classical mechanics?Is the human mind doomed to interpret and understand quantum mechanics in classical terms?The list of unanswered questions in quantum chaos research itself shows symptoms of the phenomenon it attempts to grasp. 1 How do we recognize classical Hamiltonian chaos?We have dealt with this question in our two previous columns.2,3 In Part I we discussed the implications of integrability and non-integrability for the phase-space trajectories of classical Hamiltonian systems with two degrees of freedom.We described the method of Poincaré surfaces of section as a convenient and striking discriminant between the two possibilities.In Part II we searched for an alternate mode of representation for classical Hamiltonian systems, a mode that is an equally powerful indicator of chaos, but one that can be more directly translated into quantum mechanics than the Poincaré map.We proposed a representation based on the construction of classical invariants via time averages of dynamical variables, a representation that can be employed under very general circumstances including integrable and nonintegrable models.In this column we shall construct quantum invariants, demonstrate the impact of non-integrability on these quantities, and discuss their properties in relation to their classical counterparts.In a future column we intend to introduce quantum Poincaré surfaces of section for stationary states and bring full circle our survey of quantum and classical Hamiltonian chaos.Consider a quantized integrable model.Its eigenstates are labeled by quantum numbers.There are as many quantum numbers as there are degrees of freedom.Each quantum number represents a quantized action.In the still evolving language of quantum chaos, quantum numbers are said to have been "lost" in the transition from a quantum system whose classical counterpart is integrable to one whose counterpart is chaotic.The broken, or lost, tori of classical chaos become lost quantum numbers of quantum chaos.As we shall see, the loss of quantum numbers is vividly mirrored in the behavior of the quantum invariants.We begin by describing the construction of the quantum invariants for a
Nonlinearity in Quantum Mechanics may have extrinsic or intrinsic origins and is a liable route to a chaotic behaviour that can be of difficult observations. In this paper, we propose two forms of nonlinear Hamiltonian, which explicitly depend upon the phase of the wave function and produce chaotic behaviour. To speed up the slow manifestation of chaotic effects, a resonant laser field assisting the time evolution of the systems causes cumulative effects that might be revealed, at least in principle. The nonlinear Schrödinger equation is solved within the two-state approximation; the solution displays features with characteristics similar to those found in chaotic Classical Mechanics: sensitivity on the initial state, dense power spectrum, irregular filling of the Poincaré map and exponential separation of the trajectories of the Bloch vector σ in the Bloch sphere.
Using the key properties of chaos, i.e. ergodicity and exponential instability, as a resource to control classical dynamics has a long and considerable history. However, in the context of controlling "chaotic" quantum unitary dynamics, the situation is far more tenuous. The classical concepts of exponential sensitivity to trajectory initial conditions and ergodicity do not directly translate into quantum unitary evolution. Nevertheless properties inherent to quantum chaos can take on those roles: i) the dynamical sensitivity to weak perturbations, measured by the fidelity decay, serves a similar purpose as the classical sensitivity to initial conditions; and ii) paired with the fact that quantum chaotic systems are conjectured to be statistically described by random matrix theory, implies a method to translate the ergodic feature into the control of quantum dynamics. With those two properties, it can be argued that quantum chaotic dynamical systems, in principle, allow for full controllability beyond a characteristic time that scales only logarithmically with system size and ℏ−1\hbar^{-1}ℏ−1. In the spirit of classical targeting, it implies that it is possible to fine tune the immense quantum interference with weak perturbations and steer the system from any initial state into any desired target state, subject to constraints imposed by conserved quantities. In contrast, integrable dynamics possess neither ergodicity nor exponential instability, and thus the weak perturbations apparently must break the integrability for control purposes. The main ideas are illustrated with the quantum kicked rotor. The production of revivals, cat-like entangled states, and the transition from any random state to any other random state is possible as demonstrated.
In this work the decoherence formalism of quantum mechanics is explored and applied to a number of interesting problems in quantum physics. The boundary between quantum and classical physics is examined, and demonstration made that quantum histories corresponding to classical equations of motion become more probable for a broad class of models, including linear and nonlinear models of Brownian motion. The link between noise, dissipation, and decoherence is studied. This work is then applied to systems which classically exhibit dissipative chaotic dynamics. A theory is explicated for treating these systems, and the ideas are applied to a particular model of the forced, damped Duffing oscillator, which is chaotic for certain parameter values. Differences between classical and quantum chaos are examined, particularly differences arising in the structure of fractal strange attractors, and the conceptual difficulties in framing standard notions of chaos in a quantum system. A brief discussion of previous work on quantum chaos is included, and the differences between Hamiltonian and dissipative chaos pointed out; a somewhat different interpretation of quantum chaos from the standard one is suggested. A class of histories for quantum systems, in phase space rather than configuration space, is studied. Different ways of representing projections in phase space are discussed, and expressions for the probability of phase space histories are derived; conditions for such histories to decohere are also estimated in the semiclassical limit.
Quantum chaos---the study of quantized nonintegrable Hamiltonian systems---is an extremely well-developed and sophisticated field. By contrast, very little work has been done in looking at quantum versions of systems which classically exhibit {\\it dissipative} chaos. Using the decoherence formalism of Gell-Mann and Hartle, I find a quantum mechanical analog of one such system, the forced damped Duffing oscillator. I demonstrate the classical limit of the system, and discuss its decoherent histories. I show that using decoherent histories, one can define not only the quantum map of an entire density operator, but can find an analog to the Poincar\\'e map of the individual trajectory. Finally, I argue the usefulness of this model as an example of quantum dissipative chaos, as well as of a practical application of the decoherence formalism to an interesting problem.