Quantum chaos at the Kinetic Stage of Evolution

Abstract

It is shown that a periodic perturbation of the quantum pendulum (similarly to the classical one) in the neighbourhood of the separatrix can bring about irreversible phenomena. As a result of recurrent passages between degenerate states, the system gets self-chaotized and passes from the pure state to the mixed one. Chaotization involves the states, the branch points of whose levels participate in a slow "drift" of the system along the Mathieu characteristics this "drift" being caused by a slowly changing variable field. Recurrent relations are obtained for populations of levels participating in the irreversible evolution process. It is shown that the entropy of the system first grows and, after reaching the equilibrium state, acquires a constant value.