We construct a class of systems for which quantum dynamics can be expanded around a mean field approximation with essentially classical content.
The modulus of the quantum overlap of mean field states naturally introduces a classical distance between classical phase points. Using this fact we analytically show that the time rate of change (trc) of two neighbouring classical trajectories is directly proportional to the trc of quantum correlations. Coherence loss and nonlocality effects appear as corrections to mean field dynamics and we show that they can be given in terms of classical trajectories and generalized actions. This result is a first step in the connection between quantum and classically chaotic dynamics in the same sense of semiclassical expansions for the density of states. We apply the results to the nonintegrable (classically chaotic) version of the N-atom Jaynes-Cummings model.
We present several recent results concerning the transition between quantum and classical mechanics, in the situation where the underlying dynamical system has an hyperbolic behaviour. The special role of invariant manifolds will be emphasized, and the long time evolution will show how the quantum non-determinism and the classical chaotic sensitivity to initial conditions can be compared, and in a certain sense overlap.
In this work the two site Bose-Hubbard model is studied analytically in the limit of weak coupling u and large number of particles N . The semiclassical approximation where \frac{1}{N} plays the role of Planck's constant was used and perturbation theory to order u^{2} was applied. In particular, the difference in the occupation between the two sites, where initially all particles are at one site was calculated analytically. Excellent agreement with the exact numerical solution was found. This quantity exhibits collapses and revivals that superimpose rapid oscillations. The occupation differenc…
Recoupling coefficients (3nj symbols) are unitary transformations between binary coupled eigenstates of N=(n+1) mutually commuting SU(2) angular momentum operators. They have been used in a variety of applications in spectroscopy, quantum chemistry and nuclear physics and quite recently also in quantum gravity and quantum computing. These coefficients, naturally associated to cubic Yutsis graphs, share a number of intriguing combinatorial, algebraic, and analytical features that make them fashinating objects to be studied on their own. In this paper we develop a bottom--up, systematic procedur…
Recent experimental progress using ultracold gases in optical lattices necessitates a quantitative theoretical description for a significant number of bosons. In the present paper, we investigate if time-dependent semiclassical initial value methods, with propagators expressed as integrals over phase space using classical trajectories, is suitable to describe interacting bosons, concentrating on a single mode. Despite the nonlinear contribution from the self-interaction, the corresponding classical dynamics allows for a largely analytical treatment of the semiclassical propagator. We find that…
We discuss the semiclassical limit of the entanglement for the class of closed pure systems. By means of analytical and numerical calculations we obtain two main results: (i) the short-time entanglement does not depend on Planck's constant and (ii) the long-time entanglement increases as more semiclassical regimes are attained. On one hand, this result is in contrast with the idea that the entanglement should be destroyed when the macroscopic limit is reached. On the other hand, it emphasizes the role played by decoherence in the process of emergence of the classical world. We also found that,…
The transmission of a probe field experiencing electromagnetically induced transparency and optical switching in an atomic medium enclosed in an optical cavity is investigated. Using a semiclassical input-output theory for the interaction between an ensemble of four-level atoms and three optical cavity fields coupled to the same spatial cavity mode, we derive the steady-state transmission spectra of the probe field and discuss the dynamics of the intracavity field buildup. The analytical and numerical results are in good agreement with recent experiments with ion Coulomb crystals [M. Albert et…
We consider hamiltonian systems with spatially varying effective mass and slowly varying local potential in d dimensions. The Slater sum is defined as the diagonal element of the Bloch propagator. We derive a gradient expansion of the Slater sum up to the second order. We will show that the derived analytical expression is valid for d=1,2,3 and 4. A numerical example is shown to highlight the effect of the spatially varying effective mass.
Motivated by the proposal to simulate para-Bose oscillators in a trapped-ion setup [C. Huerta Alderete and B. M. Rodríguez-Lara, Phys. Rev. A 95, 013820 (2017)], we introduce an overcomplete, nonorthogonal basis for para-Bose Hilbert spaces. The states spanning these bases can be experimentally realized in the trapped-ion simulation via time evolution. The para-Bose states show both nonclassical and semiclassical statistics on their Fock state distribution, asymmetric field quadrature variances, and do not minimize the uncertainty relation for the field quadratures. These properties are analyt…
We study the classical and quantum perturbation theory for two non--resonant oscillators coupled by a nonlinear quartic interaction. In particular we analyze the question of quantum corrections to the torus quantization of the classical perturbation theory (semiclassical mechanics). We obtain up to the second order of perturbation theory an explicit analytical formula for the quantum energy levels, which is the semiclassical one plus quantum corrections. We compare the "exact" quantum levels obtained numerically to the semiclassical levels studying also the effects of quantum corrections.
The relativistic semiclassical evolution of the position of an electron in the presence of an external electromagnetic field is studied in terms of a Newton equation that incorporates spin effects directly. This equation emerges from the Dirac equation and allows the identification of scenarios where spin effects are necessary to understand the main characteristics of the electron trajectories. It involves the eigenvalues of the non-Hermitian operator $Σ_{μν}F^{μν}$ with $Σ_{μν}$ and $F^{μν}$ as the spin and electromagnetic tensors. The formalism allows a deeper understanding on the physics be…
The quantum mechanical many-body problem is rarely analytically solvable. One notable exception is the case of two electrons interacting via a Coulomb potential in a uniform magnetic field. The motion is confined to a two-dimensional plane, which is commonly the case in nanodevices. We compare the exact solution with the semiclassical energy spectrum and study the time-dependent dynamics of the system using the time-dependent variational principle.
This paper deals with the critical issue of approximating the pre-exponential factor in semiclassical molecular dynamics. The pre-exponential factor is important because it accounts for the quantum contribution to the semiclassical propagator of the classical Feynman path fluctuations. Pre-exponential factor approximations are necessary when chaotic or complex systems are simulated. We introduced pre-exponential factor approximations based either on analytical considerations or numerical regularization. The approximations are tested for power spectrum calculations of more and more chaotic mode…
We study the phase-space representation of dynamics of bosons in the semiclassical regime where the occupation number of the modes is large. To this end, we employ the van Vleck-Gutzwiller propagator to obtain an approximation for the Green's function of the Wigner distribution. The semiclassical analysis incorporates interference of classical paths and reduces to the truncated Wigner approximation (TWA) when the interference is ignored. Furthermore, we identify the Ehrenfest time after which the TWA fails. As a case study, we consider a single-mode quantum nonlinear oscillator, which displays…
Optimal entrainment of a quantum nonlinear oscillator to a periodically modulated weak harmonic drive is studied in the semiclassical regime. By using the semiclassical phase reduction theory recently developed for quantum nonlinear oscillators, two types of optimization problems, one for the stability and the other for the phase coherence of the entrained state, are considered. The optimal waveforms of the periodic amplitude modulation can be derived by applying the classical optimization methods to the semiclassical phase equation that approximately describes the quantum limit-cycle dynamics…
In this review, we compare different descriptions of photon-number statistics in harmonic generation processes within quantum, classical and semiclassical approaches. First, we study the exact quantum evolution of the harmonic generation by applying numerical methods including those of Hamiltonian diagonalization and global characteristics. We show explicitly that the harmonic generations can indeed serve as a source of nonclassical light. Then, we demonstrate that the quasi-stationary sub-Poissonian light can be generated in these quantum processes under conditions corresponding to the so-cal…
Analytical expressions for the semiclassical dressed states and corresponding quasienergies are obtained for a two-level quantum system driven by a nonresonant and/or strong laser field in a coherent state. These expressions are of first order in a proper perturbative expansion, and already contain all the relevant physical information on the dynamical and spectroscopic properties displayed by these systems under such particular conditions. The influence of the laser field parameters on transition frequencies, selection rules, and line intensities can be easily understood in terms of the quasi…
We investigate quantum revivals in the dynamics of an atom in an atomic Fermi accelerator. It is demonstrated that the external driving field influences the revival time significantly. Analytical expressions are presented which are based on semiclassical secular theory. These analytical results explain the dependence of the revival time on the characteristic parameters of the problem quantitatively in a simple way. They are in excellent agreement with numerical results.
We present the analytical solution in closed form for the semiclassical limit of the quantum mechanical Coulomb Green function in position space in n dimensions. We utilize a projection method which has its roots in Lambert's theorem and which allows us to treat the system as an essentially one dimensional problem. The semiclassical result assumes a simple analytical form and is well suited for a numerical evaluation. The method can also be extended to classically forbidden space regions. Already for moderately large principal quantum numbers nu >= 5, the semiclassical Green function is found …
We present a numerically feasible semiclassical (SC) method to evaluate quantum fidelity decay (Loschmidt echo, FD) in a classically chaotic system. It was thought that such evaluation would be intractable, but instead we show that a uniform SC expression not only is tractable but it gives remarkably accurate numerical results for the standard map in both the Fermi-golden-rule and Lyapunov regimes. Because it allows Monte Carlo evaluation, the uniform expression is accurate at times when there are 10^70 semiclassical contributions. Remarkably, it also explicitly contains the ``building blocks'…
It is widely recognized that entanglement generation and dynamical chaos are intimately related in semiclassical models via the process of decoherence. In this work, we propose a unifying framework which directly connects the bipartite and multipartite entanglement growth to the quantifiers of classical and quantum chaos. In the semiclassical regime, the dynamics of the von Neumann entanglement entropy, the spin squeezing, the quantum Fisher information and the out-of-time-order square commutator are governed by the divergence of nearby phase-space trajectories via the local Lyapunov spectrum,…
Motivated by recent experimental progress to read out quantum bits implemented in superconducting circuits via the phenomenon of dynamical bifurcation, transitions between steady orbits in a driven anharmonic oscillator, the Duffing oscillator, are analyzed. In the regime of weak dissipation a consistent master equation in the semiclassical limit is derived to capture the intimate relation between finite tunneling and reflection and bath induced quantum fluctuations. From the corresponding steady state distributions analytical expressions for the switching probabilities are obtained. It is sho…
The existence of a quantum butterfly effect in the form of exponential sensitivity to small perturbations has been under debate for a long time. Lately, this question gained increased interest due to the proposal to probe chaotic dynamics and scrambling using out-of-time-order correlators. In this work we study echo dynamics in the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model under effective time reversal in a semiclassical approach. We demonstrate that small imperfections introduced in the time-reversal procedure result in an exponential divergence from the perfect echo, which allows to identify a Lyapunov expone…
We illustrate how dynamical transitions in nonlinear semiclassical models can be recognized as phase transitions in the corresponding -- inherently linear -- quantum model, where, in a Statistical Mechanics framework, the thermodynamic limit is realized by letting the particle population go to infinity at fixed size. We focus on lattice bosons described by the Bose-Hubbard (BH) model and Discrete Self-Trapping (DST) equations at the quantum and semiclassical level, respectively. After showing that the gaussianity of the quantum ground states is broken at the phase transition, we evaluate finit…
We study the excitation spectrum of a family of transverse-field spin chain models with variable interaction range and arbitrary spin $S$, which in the case of $S=1/2$ interpolates between the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick and the Ising model. For any finite number $N$ of spins, a semiclassical energy manifold is derived in the large-$S$ limit employing bosonization methods, and its geometry is shown to determine not only the leading-order term but also the higher-order quantum fluctuations. Based on a multi-configurational mean-field ansatz, we obtain the semiclassical backbone of the quantum spectrum…
We study a minimal model that has a driven-dissipative quantum phase transition, namely a Kerr non-linear oscillator subject to driving and dissipation. Using mean-field theory, exact diagonalization, and the Keldysh formalism, we analyze the critical phenomena in this system, showing which aspects can be captured by each approach and how the approaches complement each other. Then critical scaling and finite-size scaling are calculated analytically using the quantum Langevin equation. The physics contained in this simple model is surprisingly rich: it includes a continuous phase transition, $Z…
Mixed Quantum Classical (MQC)-IVR is a recently introduced semiclassical framework that allows for selective quantization of the modes of a complex system. In the quantum limit, MQC reproduces the semiclassical Double Herman-Kluk IVR results, accurately capturing nuclear quantum coherences and conserving zero-point energy. However, in the classical limit, while MQC mimics the Husimi-IVR for real-time correlation functions with linear operators, it is significantly less accurate for non-linear correlation functions with errors even at time zero. Here, we identify the origin of this discrepancy …
We numerically study out-of-equilibrium dynamics in a family of Heisenberg models with $1/r^6$ power-law interactions and positional disorder. Using the semi-classical discrete truncated Wigner approximation (dTWA) method, we investigate the time evolution of the magnetization and ensemble-averaged single-spin purity for a strongly disordered system after initializing the system in an out-of-equilibrium state. We find that both quantities display robust glassy behavior for almost any value of the anisotropy parameter of the Heisenberg Hamiltonian. Furthermore, a systematic analysis allows us t…
We investigate two coupled nonlinear cavities that are coherently driven in a dissipative environment. We perform semiclassical, numerical and analytical quantum studies of this dimer model when both cavities are symmetrically driven. In the semiclassical analysis, we find steady-state solutions with different photon occupations in two cavities. Such states can be considered analogs of the closed system double well symmetry breaking states. We analyze the occurrence and properties of these localized states in the system parameter space and examine how the symmetry breaking states, in form of a…
The interaction of a five-level atomic system involving electromagnetically induced transparency with four light fields is investigated. Two different light-atom configurations are considered, and their efficiency in generating large nonlinear cross-phase shifts compared. The dispersive properties of those schemes are analyzed in detail, and the conditions leading to group velocity matching for two of the light fields identified. An analytical treatment based on amplitude equations is used in order to obtain approximate solutions for the susceptibilities, ehich are shown to fit well with the n…
While rigorous quantum dynamical simulations of many-body systems are extremely difficult (or impossible) due to the exponential scaling with dimensionality, corresponding classical simulations completely ignore quantum effects. Semiclassical methods are generally more efficient but less accurate than quantum methods, and more accurate but less efficient than classical methods. We find a remarkable exception to this rule by showing that a semiclassical method can be both more accurate and faster than a classical simulation. Specifically, we prove that for the semiclassical dephasing representa…
The mechanical action of light on atoms is nowadays a tool used ubiquitously in cold atom physics. In the semiclassical regime where the atomic motion is treated classically, the computation of the mean force acting on a two-level atom requires in the most general case numerical approaches. Here we show that this problem can be tackled in a pure analytical way. We provide an analytical yet simple expression of the mean force that holds in the most general case where the atom is simultaneously exposed to an arbitrary number of lasers with arbitrary intensities, wave vectors, and phases. This yi…
