Exponential mixing and log h time scales in quantized hyperbolic maps on the torus

Abstract

We study the behaviour, in the simultaneous limits \hbar going to 0, t going to \infty, of the Husimi and Wigner distributions of initial coherent states and position eigenstates, evolved under the quantized hyperbolic toral automorphisms and the quantized baker map. We show how the exponential mixing of the underlying dynamics manifests itself in those quantities on time scales logarithmic in \hbar. The phase space distributions of the coherent states, evolved under either of those dynamics, are shown to equidistribute on the torus in the limit \hbar going to 0, for times t between |\log\hbar|/(2\gamma) and |\log|\hbar|/\gamma, where \gamma is the Lyapounov exponent of the classical system. For times shorter than |\log\hbar|/(2\gamma), they remain concentrated on the classical trajectory of the center of the coherent state. The behaviour of the phase space distributions of evolved position eigenstates, on the other hand, is not the same for the quantized automorphisms as for the baker map. In the first case, they equidistribute provided t goes to \infty as \hbar goes to 0, and as long as t is shorter than |\log\hbar|/\gamma. In the second case, they remain localized on the evolved initial position at all such times.