# Wave-particle Duality in Complex Quantum Systems

## TL;DR

This paper explores how wave-particle duality can be identified as a quantum signature in complex systems, distinguishing quantum effects from classical stochasticity through analysis of individual quantum events.

## Contribution

It provides a framework for recognizing quantum wave-particle duality signatures in complex systems amidst environmental noise and classical randomness.

## Key findings

- Quantum randomness can be distinguished from classical stochasticity.
- Single incident analysis is crucial for identifying quantum signatures.
- Wave-particle duality remains a key feature in complex quantum systems.

## Abstract

Stunning progresses in the experimental resolution and control of natural or man-made complex systems at the level of their quantum mechanical constituents raises the question, across diverse subdisciplines of physics, chemistry and biology, whether that fundamental quantum nature may condition the dynamical and functional system properties on mesoscopic if not macroscopic scales. But which are the distinctive signatures of quantum properties in complex systems, notably when modulated by environmental stochasticity and dynamical instabilities? It appears that, to settle this question across the above communities, a shared understanding is needed of the central feature of quantum mechanics: wave-particle duality. In this Perspective, we elaborate how randomness induced by this very quantum property can be discerned from the stochasticity ubiquitous in complex systems already on the classical level. We argue that in the study of increasingly complex systems such distinction requires the analysis of single incidents of quantum dynamical processes.