Quantization of the kicked rotator with dissipation

Abstract

The effect of dissipation on a quantum system exhibiting chaos in its classical limit is studied by coupling the kicked quantum rotator to a reservoir with angular momentum exchange. A master equation is derived which maps the density matrix from one kick to the subsequent one. Several limiting cases are investigated. The limits of ħ→0 and of vanishing dissipation serve as tests of consistency, in reproducing the maps of the classical kicked damped rotator and of the kicked quantum rotator, respectively. In the limit of strong dissipation the classical map reduces to a circle map. A quantum map corresponding to the circle map is therefore obtained in this limit. In the limit of infinite dissipation the density matrix becomes independent of the initial condition after a single application of the map, allowing for a simple analytical solution for the density matrix. In the semi-classical limit the quantum map reduces to a classical map with quantum mechanically determined classical noise terms, which are evaluated. For sufficiently small dissipation the physical character of the leading quantum corrections changes. Quantum mechanical interference effects then render the Wigner distribution negative in some parts of phase space and prevent its interpretation in classical terms. Numerical results will be presented in a subsequent paper.