The Born Rule in Quantum and Classical Mechanics

Considerable effort has been devoted to deriving the Born rule (e.g. that $|\psi(x)|^2 dx$ is the probability of finding a system, described by $\psi$, between $x$ and $x + dx$) in quantum mechanics. Here we show that the Born rule is not solely quantum mechanical; rather, it arises naturally in the Hilbert space formulation of {\it classical} mechanics as well. These results provide new insights into the nature of the Born rule, and impact on its understanding in the framework of quantum mechanics.Comment: 5 pages, no figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Quantum-Classical Correspondence via Liouville Dynamics: II. Correspondence for Chaotic Hamiltonian Systems

We prove quantum-classical correspondence for bound conservative classically chaotic Hamiltonian systems. In particular, quantum Liouville spectral projection operators and spectral densities, and hence classical dynamics, are shown to approach their classical analogs in the $h\rightarrow 0$ limit. Correspondence is shown to occur via the elimination of essential singularities. In addition, applications to matrix elements of observables in chaotic systems are discussed.Comment: 41 pages, revtex, second of two paper

Uniform Semiclassical Wavepacket Propagation and Eigenstate Extraction in a Smooth Chaotic System

A uniform semiclassical propagator is used to time evolve a wavepacket in a smooth Hamiltonian system at energies for which the underlying classical motion is chaotic. The propagated wavepacket is Fourier transformed to yield a scarred eigenstate.Comment: Postscript file is tar-compressed and uuencoded (342K); postscript file produced is 1216

Chaos and Lyapunov exponents in classical and quantal distribution dynamics

We analytically establish the role of a spectrum of Lyapunov exponents in the evolution of phase-space distributions $\rho(p,q)$. Of particular interest is $\lambda_2$, an exponent which quantifies the rate at which chaotically evolving distributions acquire structure at increasingly smaller scales and which is generally larger than the maximal Lyapunov exponent $\lambda$ for trajectories. The approach is trajectory-independent and is therefore applicable to both classical and quantum mechanics. In the latter case we show that the $\hbar\to 0$ limit yields the classical, fully chaotic, result for the quantum cat map.Comment: 5 RevTeX pages + 2 ps figs. Phys. Rev. E (to appear,'97