Thermal fluctuations in quantized chaotic systems

Publication date 26 September 1999

Abstract: We consider a quantum system with

N

degrees of freedom which is classically chaotic. When

N

is large, and both

h b a r

and the quantum energy uncertainty

D e l t a E

are small, quantum chaos theory can be used to demonstrate the following results: (1) given a generic observable

A

, the infinite time average

o v e r l i n e A

of the quantum expectation value

< A (t) >

is independent of all aspects of the initial state other than the total energy, and equal to an appropriate thermal average of

A

; (2) the time variations of

< A (t) > - o v e r l i n e A

are too small to represent thermal fluctuations; (3) however, the time variations of

< A^{2} (t) > - < A (t) >^{2}

can be consistently interpreted as thermal fluctuations, even though these same time variations would be called quantum fluctuations when

N

is small.

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