Emergence of Chaos in Quantum Systems Far from the Classical Limit

2004/12/21 by Salman Habib, Kurt Jacobs, Kosuke Shizume · 2 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Nonlinear Dynamics and Pattern Formation #Protein Structure and Dynamics #Quantum chaos and dynamical systems #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.96.010403

published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 010403 (2006) · 4 pages, 4 figures

arxiv created 2004/12/21 · openalex publication_date 2006/01/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

The dynamical status of isolated quantum systems is unclear as conventional measures fail to detect chaos in such systems. However, when quantum systems are subjected to observation--as all experimental systems must be--their dynamics is no longer linear and, in the appropriate limit(s), the evolution of expectation values, conditioned on the observations, closely approaches the behavior of classical trajectories. Here we show, by analyzing a specific example, that microscopic continuously observed quantum systems, even far from any classical limit, can have a positive Lyapunov exponent, and thus be truly chaotic.

Citations

• Continuous quantum measurement and the quantum to classical transition
• Feedback-control of quantum systems using continuous state-estimation
• Transition to classical chaos in a coupled quantum system through continuous measurement
• Determining Lyapunov exponents from a time series
• Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods

Cited by

• A straightforward introduction to continuous quantum measurement
• Paradigms for Quantum Feedback Control