Our account of the problem of the classical limit of quantum mechanics involves two elements. The first one is self-induced decoherence, conceived as a process that depends on the own dynamics of a closed quantum system governed by a Hamiltonian with continuous spectrum; the study of decoherence is addressed by means of a formalism used to give meaning to the van Hove states with diagonal singularities. The second element is macroscopicity: when the macroscopic limit is applied to the Wigner transformation of the diagonal state resulting from decoherence, the description of the quantum system becomes equivalent to the description of an ensemble of classical trajectories on phase space weighted by their corresponding probabilities.
Our account of the problem of the classical limit of quantum mechanics involves two elements. The first one is self-induced decoherence, conceived as a process that depends on the own dynamics of a closed quantum system governed by a Hamiltonian with continuous spectrum; the study of decoherence is addressed by means of a formalism used to give meaning to the van Hove states with diagonal singularities. The second element is macroscopicity: when the macroscopic limit is applied to the Wigner transformation of the diagonal state resulting from decoherence, the description of the quantum system becomes equivalent to the description of an ensemble of classical trajectories on phase space weighted by their corresponding probabilities.
In this paper we argue that the emergence of the classical world from the underlying quantum reality involves two elements: self-induced decoherence and macroscopicity. Self-induced decoherence does not require the openness of the system and its interaction with the environment: a single closed system can decohere when its Hamiltonian has continuous spectrum. We show that, if the system is macroscopic enough, after self-induced decoherence it can be described as an ensemble of classical distributions weighted by their corresponding probabilities. We also argue that classicality is an emergent property that arises when the behavior of the system is described from an observational perspective.
We discuss the emergence of the classical description from quantum mechanics for chaotic systems. We consider a specific model, which corresponds to an ion trapped in a harmonic potential and submitted to a sequence of laser pulses: the kicked harmonic oscillator, under conditions that lead to chaotic behavior for the classical system. We show that noise plays an essential role in the transition from quantum to classical behavior. This transition is described in terms of the separation between the classical phase space distribution and the Wigner function corresponding to the quantum system, obtained by integrating over the whole phase space the magnitude of the difference between the two distributions. It is shown that, in the semiclassical limit, this separation is governed by a single parameter, which depends on the diffusion coefficient, the Lamb-Dicke parameter, and the kick strength. The Lamb-Dicke parameter plays the role of a dimensioneless Planck constant. As this parameter goes to zero, we show that both distributions remain close together for all times.
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.
Theory and experiment have not fully resolved the apparent dichotomy , which has agonized physics for the past eighty years: on the one hand, the description of microsystems by quantum mechanics and, on the other, the description of macrosystems by classical dynamics or statistical mechanics. Derivations of the time-irreversible Liouville equation for an open quantum system, based on projecting out its environment, have narrowed the gap between the quantum and classical descriptions. Yet our `classical' intuition continues to be confronted by quantum-mechanical results like the Einstein--Podolsky--Rosen paradox that challenges the classical notion of locality, or the quantum Zeno effect which suggests that the isolation of a system is not the only way to preserve its quantum state. There are two key concepts in any discussion of such issues. The first, which is responsible for the most salient nonclassical properties, is entanglement , that is partial or complete correlation or, more generally, inseparability of the elements comprising a quantum ensemble . Even after their interaction has ceased, this inseparability, originating from their past interaction, can affect the state of one element when another element is subject to a nonunitary action, such as its measurement, tracing- out, or thermalization. The second key concept is decoherence of open quantum systems, which is the consequence of their entanglement with their environment, a `meter' or a thermal `reservoir', followed by the tracing-out of the latter. Despite new insights into entanglement and decoherence, there are still no complete, unequivocal answers to the fundamental questions of the transition from quantal to classical behaviour: how do irreversibility and classicality emerge from unitarity as systems and their environments become increasingly complex ? At what stage does system--meter entanglement give rise to a classical readout of the meter? Is there an upper limit on the size or complexity of systems displaying entanglement? Major developments have opened new vistas into controlled entanglement , which is the resource of quantum information processing. However, these developments have mainly focused on ensembles of simple two- and three-level systems that are thoroughly isolated from their environments. Treatments of coherence in quantum computing have mostly assumed that only a single or a few the elements of the quantum ensemble may simultaneously undergo an uncontrolled intervention---a quantum error. Decoherence-control protocols for more general types of errors are still incomplete. In order to resolve the outstanding issues of the quantum--classical transition, and study the control of entanglement and decoherence without the foregoing restrictions, we must venture into the domain of Quantum Complex Systems (QUACS), either consisting of a large number of inseparable elements or having many coupled degrees of freedom. Our conviction is that fundamental understanding and manipulation of entanglement within QUACS or their entanglement with the environment or a meter, call for the creation of a new conceptual framework or paradigm, that would encompass phenomena common to cold atoms in laser fields, large molecules, Josephson junctions, quantum gases and solids, with the view of employing these systems for quantum information processing and computing. Progress within this paradigm should allow us to answer the questions: does entanglement play an essential role in the evolution of large collections of complex systems? What are the size and complexity limits of systems and ensembles still controllable by an external intervention? What are the most appropriate decoherence protection schemes and control algorithms? This special issue addresses the challenge of understanding in depth and manipulating the basic quantum properties of optical, atomic, molecular and condensed-matter QUACS, and large ensembles thereof. In view of the interdisciplinary character of this issue, we find it expedient to look at the presented articles not only according to the physical objects they describe, but also from a unifying standpoint. Several unifying themes may be discerned: memory effects in dephasing and relaxation; protection of quantum information by its distribution throughout the ensemble; control of decoherence and entanglement by time-dependent interventions or measurements; manifestations of entanglement in scattering off statistical ensembles; measurment-induced dynamics. The concerted discussion of the topics outlined above should help us advance the new paradigm that addresses our abilities to diagnose and manipulate the entangled states of complex quantum objects and their robustness against decoherence. These abilities are required for quantum information (QI) applications in matter--wave interferometry in molecular, semiconducting or superconducting systems. On the fundamental level, this book may help establish the notion of dynamical information exchange between quantum systems and chart in detail the route from unitarity to classicality. Further developments within the outlined paradigm should yield novel, advantageous QI processing schemes and high-sensitivity interferometers, owing to decoherence suppression and effective control of many degrees of freedom. In the long run, these strategies may prove to be the first step towards the (hitherto unattempted) use of entanglement in nanotechnology, metrology and chemistry, with potentially remarkable novel applications.
We study a formulation of quantum mechanics in which the central notion is that of a quantum-mechanical history---a sequence of events at a succession of times. The primary aim is to identify sets of ``decoherent'' (or ``consistent'') histories for the system. These are quantum-mechanical histories suffering negligible interference with each other, and, therefore, to which probabilities may be assigned. These histories may be found for a given system using the so-called decoherence functional. When the decoherence functional is exactly diagonal, probabilities may be assigned to the histories, and all probability sum rules are satisfied exactly. We propose a condition for approximate decoherence, and argue that it implies that most probability sum rules will be satisfied to approximately the same degree. We also derive an inequality bounding the size of the off-diagonal terms of the decoherence functional. We calculate the decoherence functional for some simple one-dimensional systems, with a variety of initial states. For these systems, we explore the extent to which decoherence is produced using two different types of coarse graining. The first type of coarse graining involves imprecise specification of the particle's position. The second involves coupling the particle to a thermal bath of harmonic oscillators and ignoring the details of the bath (the Caldeira-Leggett model). We argue that both types of coarse graining are necessary in general. We explicitly exhibit the degree of decoherence as a function of the temperature of the bath, and of the width to within which the particle's position is specified. We study the diagonal elements of the decoherence functional, representing the probabilities for the possible histories of the system. To the extent that the histories decohere, we show that the probability distributions are peaked about the classical histories of the system, with the distribution of their initial positions and momenta given by a smeared version of the Wigner function. We discuss this result in connection with earlier uses of the Wigner function in this context. We find that there is a certain amount of tension between the demands of decoherence and peaking about classical paths.
In this work our aim is to study several aspects related to quantum coherence as understood to correspond with the non-classical behaviour that can be observed for certain particular states of a physical system. In particular we are interested in the possible mechanisms that result in dynamically induced transitions between quantum and classical regimes. The thesis is organized as follows: The first chapter dubs as an introduction and serves to set out the basic philosophy underlying the questions addressed in this thesis. It also presents some elementary properties of states and state spaces in Quantum Theory including what we have chosen to define as classical and quantum behaviour. In chapter 2 we study some of the aspects related to observing quantum behaviour and of the properties of our main definition of classicality (and quantumness). Here we also study some of the restrictions imposed on measurements by the existence of globally conserved quantities (Wigner-Araki-Yanase theorem) and their relationship to weak measurements coupled to postselection. In the following chapter we review some of the basic tools used in the description of open quantum system dynamics that will be applied in other chapters. In chapter 4 we review the basics of decoherence and analyse the importance of the choice of initial conditions when trying to study the dynamical emergence of classical behaviour within Quantum Theory. Next we study the other direction of the transition and focus on how to obtain pure quantum states from states that originally were classically mixed. Along the same lines, in chapter 6 we cover some topics related to the production of pure quantum states from measurements. We pay special attention to a model of the non-selective continuous monitoring of a system coupled to another unmonitored system. Lastly we explore some of the possible similarities between the theory of phase transitions and the quantum-classical transition. We must emphasize that all the work done in this thesis assumes that Quantum Theory is generally valid (at least within a broad enough range of energies). Thus, when we say that a state is “classical” we will mainly be referring to one of all the possible states contained in Quantum Theory, but that is susceptible to being interpreted as corresponding to “classical” behaviour. Similarly when we speak of creating a “quantum”, or “quantum coherent”, state we mean that the system has evolved to this state from one of the “classical” ones, but all of these still correspond to valid states within Quantum Theory. In the opinion of the author the main original contributions that can be found in this thesis are the following: - The recognition of the relationship between the Wigner-Araki-Yanase theorem and weak measurements coupled to postselection (sections 2.2 and 2.4); - A mathematical proof of the possible ambiguities arising when two observers try to decide if a state corresponds to quantum or classical behaviour (section 2.6); - The implications of initial correlations in decoherence models. In particular how the choice of certain (correlated) initial conditions can result in residual coherence and the production of pure quantum states in a model that otherwise results in ideal decoherence when (locally equivalent) uncorrelated initial conditions are used (section 4.2); - Various results related to the production of quantum states from initially classical states (sections 5.2 to 5.4); - The analysis of the inverse of a generalized depolarizing channel (section 5.7); - The study of a model of the non-selective continuous monitoring, in the quantum Zeno limit, of a subsystem A interacting with an unmonitored subsystem B. In particular the absence of the purification of B, which has been previously predicted in the selective case, but the possibility of coherent dynamics for B (section 6.4); - The identification of the loose equivalent of a broken symmetry and order parameter in the quantum-classical transition (section 7.2).