Semiclassics of the Chaotic Quantum-Classical Transition

Abstract

We elucidate the basic physical mechanisms responsible for the quantum-classical transition in one-dimensional, bounded chaotic systems subject to unconditioned environmental interactions. We show that such a transition occurs due to the dual role of noise in regularizing the semiclassical Wigner function and averaging over fine structures in classical phase space. The results are interpreted in the novel context of applying recent advances in the theory of measurement and open systems to the semiclassical quantum regime. We use these methods to show how a local semiclassical picture is stabilized and can then be approximated by a classical distribution at later times. The general results are demonstrated explicitly via high-resolution numerical simulations of the quantum master equation for a chaotic Duffing oscillator.