Classical dynamics emerging from quantum dynamics in macroscopic bodies, a note with a simple example

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how classical behavior of a macroscopic body's center of mass emerges from quantum mechanics, using a stylized model and statistical independence of smaller parts, highlighting the role of external potential.

Contribution

It provides a conceptual framework showing the emergence of classical dynamics from quantum descriptions in macroscopic bodies, emphasizing the importance of statistical independence and external potentials.

Findings

Quantum distributions of extensive variables become sharply peaked.

Center of mass dynamics are essentially classical.

External potential acts as a measurement process.

Abstract

Using very general and well established ideas of the statistical physics of macroscopic bodies, that is, of those composed of many degrees of freedom, we show how classical behavior of the center of mass motion arises from a fully quantum mechanical description of the dynamics of the whole body. We do not attempt to provide a rigorous proof of the latter statement, but rather, we show or, at least, indicate the hypotheses needed to obtain the purported result. Moreover, we neither attempt to deal with the "most general" physical situation and, instead, we concentrate on a stylized model of a small solid, yet macroscopic, that we shall call a "little stone". The main hypothesis is that a macroscopic body can be decomposed into several smaller pieces, still macroscopic, that become statistically independent due to the short-range interaction nature of their constituent atoms. The ensuing main result is that the quantum distributions of extensive variables of the body become sharply-peaked. The center of mass variables are of this type and hence their dynamics is essentially classical. We point out the crucial role played by the external potential, in which the motion occurs, as the macroscopic agent that executes the "measurement" process of the center of mass.