An example of the decoherence approach to quantum dissipative chaos

Abstract

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 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 Poincaré 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.