2014/10/16 by Dimitris Kakofengitis, Kakofengitis, Dimitris, Ole Steuernagel +1
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #FOS: Physical sciences #Nonlinear Dynamics and Pattern Formation #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Quantum chaos and dynamical systems
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1410.4367
openalex publication_date 2014/10/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The Hamiltonian flow of a classical, time-independent, conservative system is incompressible, it is Liouvillian. The analog of Hamilton's equations of motion for a quantum-mechanical system is the quantum-Liouville equation. It is shown that its associated quantum flow in phase space, Wigner flow, is not incompressible. It gives rise to a quantum analog of classical Hamiltonian vector fields: the Wigner phase space velocity field~\bm w, the divergence of which can be unbounded. The loci of such unbounded divergence form lines in phase space which coincide with the lines of zero of the Wigner function. Along these lines exist characteristic pinch points which coincide with stagnation points of the Wigner flow.