Quantum Octahedral Fractal via Random Spin-State Jumps

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Quantum jumps of spin 1/2 states on the Bloch sphere are realized by Möbius transformations. Chaos games produced by a random sequence of six noncommuting transformations centered at the vertices of the octahedron result in a fractal pattern on the sphere. The parameter ,
, defines the sharpness of the spin-direction measurements.
Contributed by: Arkadiusz Jadczyk (March 2015)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
Snapshots
Details
The algorithm for computing Platonic quantum fractals in general: define vertices
of a regular polyhedron (there are five Platonic solids). Choose a fixed parameter
,
, which defines the "sharpness" of the fractal. Then select a random starting point
on the unit sphere. Randomly select a vertex index
; let
(one of the
possible vertices). Apply the transformation
.
This is a Möbius transformation. It gives a new starting point on the sphere. Iterate the algorithm 10000 or more times.
Plot the first two coordinates of each point. The Möbius transformation theoretically maps the unit sphere onto itself. Yet after many iterations due to numerical inaccuracies, the norm can start to diverge. Therefore, it is better to normalize
after each transformation.
For more details about Platonic quantum fractals, see [1] and [2].
References
[1] A. Jadczyk and R. Oberg, "Quantum Jumps, EEQT and the Five Platonic Fractals." arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0204056.
[2] A. Jadczyk, Quantum Fractals: From Heisenberg's Uncertainty to Barnsley's Fractality, New Jersey: World Scientific 2014.
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