Phase-space representations of the dynamics of the quantal and classical cat map are used to explore quantum-classical correspondence in a $K$ system: As $\ensuremath{\Elzxh}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$, the classical chaotic behavior is shown to emerge smoothly and exactly. The quantum dynamics near the classical limit displays both exponential separation of adjacent distributions and long time relaxation, two characteristic features of classical chaotic motion.
Phase-space representations of the dynamics of the quantal and classical cat map are used to explore quantum-classical correspondence in a K system: As \ensuremath\Elzxh\ensuremath→0, the classical chaotic behavior is shown to emerge smoothly and exactly. The quantum dynamics near the classical limit displays both exponential separation of adjacent distributions and long time relaxation, two characteristic features of classical chaotic motion.
Two approaches to quantum-classical correspondence are distinguished according to the classical dynamical theory with which quantum theory is compared. The first of these, Ehrenfest correspondence, defines a dynamical regime in which the quantum expectation values follow approximately a classical trajectory. The second of these, Liouville correspondence, applies when the quantum probability distributions remain well approximated by a density in the classical phase space. The former applies only for narrow states, whereas the latter may remain valid even for quantum states that have spread to the system size. A spin model is adopted for this correspondence study because the quantum state is discrete and finite- dimensional, and thus no artificial truncation of the Hilbert space is required. The quantum time-evolution is given by a discrete unitary mapping. The corresponding classical model is volume-preserving (non-dissipative) and the time-evolution is given by a symplectic map. In classically chaotic regimes, the widths of initially narrow quantum states grow, on average, exponentially with time, until saturation at the system size. This initial spreading rate is well approximated by the classical Lyapunov exponent when the accessible classical phase space is predominantly chaotic. Because of the exponential growth rate of the quantum variance, the Ehrenfest regime is delimited by a break-time that grows logarithmically with increasing quantum numbers. The small differences between quantum expectation values and corresponding Liouville averages of dynamical variables also grow exponentially, initially, if the classical behaviour is chaotic. This exponential rate is independent of h and consistently larger than the classical Lyapunov exponent by at least a factor of two. Interestingly, this exponential growth rate does not continue until these differences approach magnitudes of order the system size, but crosses over to power-law growth (or simply saturates), when the differences have reached magnitudes no larger than order ħ. Because of the exponential growth of these quantum-classical differences, the Liouville regime is also delimited by a break-time that grows logarithmically with increasing quantum numbers. However, due to the early saturation of the exponential growth of the differences, the Liouville log break-time applies only in a restricted domain. After spreading to the system size, the quantum states relax to an approximately time-independent state. This is characterised by equilibrium distributions that are subject to rapidly oscillating fluctuations about the coarse-grained classical steady-state. If the accessible classical phase space is predominantly chaotic, then the equilibrium quantum probability distributions are nearly microcanonical. Otherwise the steady-state quantum probability distributions accurately reflect the details of the KAM surfaces in the classical phase space. The equilibrium regime quantum fluctuations, which are quantum-classical differences, are shown to approach zero as a negative power of the quantum numbers. Since the differences between quantum expectation values and individual classical trajectories grow exponentially in time to a magnitude that scales with the system size, the Ehrenfest regime is delimited by an unrestricted log break-time. The log break-time may be short compared to experimental time-scales for some chaotic macroscopic bodies, and, as a result, an observable breakdown of Ehrenfest correspondence may arise for some macroscopic systems. Although the Liouville regime is also delimited by a log break-time, an observable breakdown of correspondence between quantum mechanics and Liouville mechanics for macroscopic bodies is not likely since their differences, expressed relative to the dimensions of the observable, approach zero in the limit of large quantum numbers.
The nature of classically chaotic quantum dynamics is studied by menas of a numerical time reversal experiment. It turns out that there is a fundamental quantum scale below which the system cannot exhibit classical irreversibility to external perturbations. On the other hand, a paradoxical phenomenon manifesting that quantum irreversibility may exceed its classical counterpart is discovered. These features are explained in terms of semicalssical dynamical theory. Introduction Classically chaotic quantum systems in general can exhibit intrinsinc chaotic behaviour on a quite restricted time scale [1], In particular localization phenomena provide direct evidence exhibiting the suppression of quantum ergodicity [2]. On the other hand, recent studies reveal that a many-dimensional system can mimic some aspects peculiar to chaotic dynamics quite well on an unexpectedly long time scale [3]. A remarkable feature that distinguishes chaotic motion from integrable motion is the sensitive dependence of dynamics on external perturbations. For classical dynamical systems such a sensitivity can be well defined by measuring how two nearby trajectories in the phase space separate in time. However, there has been proposed no systematic way to examine the sensitivity of quantum dynamics to external perturbation. In quantum dynamics, it is not possible to trace a well defined trajectory in phase space, because both quantum uncertainty and chaotic instability make a localized wavepacket spread suddenly over the phase space [4]. There is, however, a simple way in which we may test the quantum sensitivity quantitively. This is the time reversal experiment described below. In this chapter I describe several remarkable characteristics of quantal instability which have been clarified by the time reversal experiment.
We discover numerically that a moving wave packet in a chaotic billiard will always evolve into a quantum state, whose density probability distribution is exponential. This exponential distribution is found to be universal for quantum chaotic systems with rigorous proof. In contrast, for the corresponding classical system, the distribution is Gaussian. We find that the quantum exponential distribution can smoothly change to the classical Gaussian distribution with coarse graining. This universal dynamical behavior can be observed experimentally with Bose-Einstein condensates.
We use a recent result to show that the rate of loss of coherence of a quantum system increases with increasing system phase-space structure and that a chaotic quantal system in the semiclassical limit decoheres exponentially with rate $2{\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{2}$, where ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{2}$ is a generalized Lyapunov exponent. As a result, for example, the dephasing time for classically chaotic systems goes to infinity logarithmically with the temperature, in accord with recent experimental results.
The threshold for quantum-classical correspondence is D∼ℏ34
In chaotic quantum systems, an initially localized quantum state can deviate strongly from the corresponding classical phase-space distribution after the Ehrenfest time tE∼log(ℏ−1), even in the limit ℏ→0. Decoherence by the environment is often invoked to explain the persistence of the quantum-classical correspondence at longer timescales. Recent rigorous results for Lindblad dynamics with phase-space diffusion strength D show that quantum and classical evolutions remain close for times that are exponentially longer than the Ehrenfest time whenever D≫ℏ34, in units set by the classical Hamiltonian. At the same time, some heuristic arguments have suggested the weaker condition D≫ℏ2 always suffices. Here we construct an explicit Lindbladian that demonstrates that the scaling D∼ℏ34 is indeed the threshold for quantum-classical correspondence beyond the Ehrenfest time. Our example uses a smooth time-dependent Hamiltonian and linear Lindblad operators generating homogeneous isotropic diffusion. It exhibits an ℏ-independent quantum-classical discrepancy at the Ehrenfest time whenever D≪ℏ34, even for ℏ-independent "macroscopic" smooth observables.