Anharmonic quantum mechanical systems do not feature phase space trajectories

Oliva, Maxime, Kakofengitis, Dimitris and Steuernagel, Ole (2018) Anharmonic quantum mechanical systems do not feature phase space trajectories. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 502. pp. 201-210. ISSN 0378-4371
Copy

Phase space dynamics in classical mechanics is described by transport along trajectories. Anharmonic quantum mechanical systems do not allow for a trajectory-based description of their phase space dynamics. This invalidates some approaches to quantum phase space studies. We first demonstrate the absence of trajectories in general terms. We then give an explicit proof for all quantum phase space distributions with negative values: we show that the generation of coherences in anharmonic quantum mechanical systems is responsible for the occurrence of singularities in their phase space velocity fields, and vice versa. This explains numerical problems repeatedly reported in the literature, and provides deeper insight into the nature of quantum phase space dynamics.

visibility_off grid_on

grid_on
1611.03303v1
subject
Draft Version
lock
Restricted to Repository staff only

Request Copy
picture_as_pdf

Submitted Version


Atom BibTeX OpenURL ContextObject in Span OpenURL ContextObject Dublin Core MPEG-21 DIDL Data Cite XML EndNote HTML Citation METS MODS RIOXX2 XML Reference Manager Refer ASCII Citation
Export

Downloads