Simple Chaotic Motion of Quantum Particles According to the Causal Interpretation of Quantum Theory

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The causal interpretation of quantum theory developed by David Bohm introduced trajectories that are guided by a real phase function from the wavefunction in the polar form. A simple model is used to get chaotic motion; the trajectories undergo a transition from order to chaos depending on the relative phase factors
and
. The trajectories circle close to the minimum (nodal) points. For example, at the origin the squared wavefunction has a minimum for all
:
. The graphic shows the squared time-dependent wavefunction, the quantum particles, and the complete paths.
Contributed by: Klaus von Bloh (March 2011)
After work by: Adam J. Makowski
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
Snapshots
Details
Chaotic motion takes place when a relative phase is introduced for a superposition of two stationary eigenstates of an isotropic harmonic quantum oscillator.
The Schrödinger equation, with
, is
.
The unnormalized wavefunction used is
, with the eigenfunctions
and the energy
, with
.
The polar form of the wavefunction is.
The velocities and therefore the trajectories are derived from the gradient of the phase function .
The model is based on a paper by A. Makowski and M. Frackowiak (arXiv:quant-ph/0111155v1 (2001)).
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