Beyond the First Recurrence in Scar Phenomena

The scarring effect of short unstable periodic orbits up to times of the order of the first recurrence is well understood. Much less is known, however, about what happens past this short-time limit. By considering the evolution of a dynamically averaged wave packet, we show that the dynamics for longer times is controlled by only a few related short periodic orbits and their interplay.Comment: 4 pages, 4 Postscript figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Signatures of homoclinic motion in quantum chaos

Homoclinic motion plays a key role in the organization of classical chaos in Hamiltonian systems. In this Letter, we show that it also imprints a clear signature in the corresponding quantum spectra. By numerically studying the fluctuations of the widths of wavefunctions localized along periodic orbits we reveal the existence of an oscillatory behavior, that is explained solely in terms of the primary homoclinic motion. Furthermore, our results indicate that it survives the semiclassical limit.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Exact Coupling Coefficient Distribution in the Doorway Mechanism

In many--body and other systems, the physics situation often allows one to interpret certain, distinct states by means of a simple picture. In this interpretation, the distinct states are not eigenstates of the full Hamiltonian. Hence, there is an interaction which makes the distinct states act as doorways into background states which are modeled statistically. The crucial quantities are the overlaps between the eigenstates of the full Hamiltonian and the doorway states, that is, the coupling coefficients occuring in the expansion of true eigenstates in the simple model basis. Recently, the distribution of the maximum coupling coefficients was introduced as a new, highly sensitive statistical observable. In the particularly important regime of weak interactions, this distribution is very well approximated by the fidelity distribution, defined as the distribution of the overlap between the doorway states with interaction and without interaction. Using a random matrix model, we calculate the latter distribution exactly for regular and chaotic background states in the cases of preserved and fully broken time--reversal invariance. We also perform numerical simulations and find excellent agreement with our analytical results.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figure

Scarring by homoclinic and heteroclinic orbits

In addition to the well known scarring effect of periodic orbits, we show here that homoclinic and heteroclinic orbits, which are cornerstones in the theory of classical chaos, also scar eigenfunctions of classically chaotic systems when associated closed circuits in phase space are properly quantized, thus introducing strong quantum correlations. The corresponding quantization rules are also established. This opens the door for developing computationally tractable methods to calculate eigenstates of chaotic systems.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Superscars in the LiNC=LiCN isomerization reaction

We demonstrate the existence of superscarring in the LiNC=LiCN isomerization reaction described by a realistic potential interaction in the range of readily attainable experimental energies. This phenomenon arises as the effect of two periodic orbits appearing "out of the blue"in a saddle--node bifurcation taking place in the dynamics of the system. Potential practical consequences of this superlocalization in the corresponding wave functions are also considered.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. to appear in EP

Localization properties of groups of eigenstates in chaotic systems

In this paper we study in detail the localized wave functions defined in Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 76}, 1613 (1994), in connection with the scarring effect of unstable periodic orbits in highly chaotic Hamiltonian system. These functions appear highly localized not only along periodic orbits but also on the associated manifolds. Moreover, they show in phase space the hyperbolic structure in the vicinity of the orbit, something which translates in configuration space into the structure induced by the corresponding self--focal points. On the other hand, the quantum dynamics of these functions are also studied. Our results indicate that the probability density first evolves along the unstable manifold emanating from the periodic orbit, and localizes temporarily afterwards on only a few, short related periodic orbits. We believe that this type of studies can provide some keys to disentangle the complexity associated to the quantum mechanics of these kind of systems, which permits the construction of a simple explanation in terms of the dynamics of a few classical structures.Comment: 9 pages, 8 Postscript figures (low resolution). For high resolution versions of figs http://www.tandar.cnea.gov.ar/~wisniack/ To appear in Phys. Rev.

Classical invariants and the quantization of chaotic systems

Long periodic orbits constitute a serious drawback in Gutzwiller's theory of chaotic systems, and then it would be desirable that other classical invariants, not suffering from the same problem, could be used in the quantization of such systems. In this respect, we demonstrate how a suitable dynamical analysis of chaotic quantum spectra unveils the fundamental role played by classical invariant areas related to the stable and unstable manifolds of short periodic orbits.Comment: 4 pages, 3 postscript figure

Deformations and dilations of chaotic billiards, dissipation rate, and quasi-orthogonality of the boundary wavefunctions

We consider chaotic billiards in d dimensions, and study the matrix elements M_{nm} corresponding to general deformations of the boundary. We analyze the dependence of |M_{nm}|^2 on \omega = (E_n-E_m)/\hbar using semiclassical considerations. This relates to an estimate of the energy dissipation rate when the deformation is periodic at frequency \omega. We show that for dilations and translations of the boundary, |M_{nm}|^2 vanishes like \omega^4 as \omega -> 0, for rotations like \omega^2, whereas for generic deformations it goes to a constant. Such special cases lead to quasi-orthogonality of the eigenstates on the boundary.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Characterization of Landau-Zener Transitions in Systems with Complex Spectra

This paper is concerned with the study of one-body dissipation effects in idealized models resembling a nucleus. In particular, we study the quantum mechanics of a free particle that collides elastically with the slowly moving walls of a Bunimovich stadium billiard. Our results are twofold. First, we develop a method to solve in a simple way the quantum mechanical evolution of planar billiards with moving walls. The formalism is based on the {\it scaling method} \cite{ver} which enables the resolution of the problem in terms of quantities defined over the boundary of the billiard. The second result is related to the quantum aspects of dissipation in systems with complex spectra. We conclude that in a slowly varying evolution the energy is transferred from the boundary to the particle through Landau$-$Zener transitions.Comment: 24 pages (including 7 postcript figures), Revtex. Submitted to PR

Computationally efficient method to construct scar functions

Phys. Rev. E 85, 026214-026219 (2012) Desarrollo de un nuevo y eficiente método para la construcción de funciones de scar a lo largo de las órtbitas periódicas inestables de sistemas clásicamente caótico