Entanglement of Classical and Quantum Short-Range Dynamics in Mean-Field Systems

TL;DR

This paper explores how classical and quantum dynamics become entangled in mean-field systems, revealing a new framework that challenges traditional views on the classical-quantum transition, with implications for long-range interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel theoretical framework demonstrating entanglement of classical and quantum worlds in mean-field systems without suppressing quantum features.

Findings

Classical-quantum entanglement arises in mean-field systems.

The framework applies to systems with long-range interactions.

New results are obtained for a non-solvable model.

Abstract

The relationship between classical and quantum mechanics is usually understood via the limit $\hbar \rightarrow 0$. This is the underlying idea behind the quantization of classical objects. The apparent incompatibility of general relativity with quantum mechanics and quantum field theory has challenged for many decades this basic idea. We recently showed the emergence of classical dynamics for very general quantum lattice systems with mean-field interactions, without (complete) supression of its quantum features, in the infinite volume limit. This leads to a theoretical framework in which the classical and quantum worlds are entangled. Such an entanglement is noteworthy and is a consequence of the highly non-local character of mean-field interactions. Therefore, this phenomenon should not be restricted to systems with mean-field interactions only, but should also appear in presence of interactions that are sufficiently long-range, yielding effective, classical background fields, in the spirit of the Higgs mechanism of quantum field theory. In order to present the result in a less abstract way than in its original version, here we apply it to a concrete, physically relevant, example and discuss, by this means, various important aspects of our general approach. The model we consider is not exactly solvable and the particular results obtained are new.