Decoherence, Chaos, and the Second Law

TL;DR

This paper explores how decoherence influences entropy production in quantum chaotic systems, revealing that the entropy rate is determined by classical chaos properties and is independent of environmental coupling, offering insights into quantum-classical correspondence and time asymmetry.

Contribution

It demonstrates that in open quantum chaotic systems, the entropy production rate is governed by the system's Lyapunov exponent and is unaffected by the strength of system-environment interactions.

Findings

Entropy production rate reaches an asymptotic value.

Rate is independent of system-environment coupling.

Dominated by the largest Lyapunov exponent.

Abstract

We investigate implications of decoherence for quantum systems which are classically chaotic. We show that, in open systems, the rate of von Neumann entropy production quickly reaches an asymptotic value which is: (i) independent of the system-environment coupling, (ii) dictated by the dynamics of the system, and (iii) dominated by the largest Lyapunov exponent. These results shed a new light on the correspondence between quantum and classical dynamics as well as on the origins of the ``arrow of time.''