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Bala Sundaram

Publications and source records attributed to Bala Sundaram.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Parameter scaling in the decoherent quantum-classical transition for chaotic systems.

The quantum to classical transition for a system depends on many parameters, including a scale length for its action, variant Planck's over 2 pi, a measure of its coupling to the environment, D, and, for chaotic systems, the classical Lyapunov exponent, lambda. We propose measuring the proximity of quantum and classical evolutions as a multivariate function of (Planck's over 2 pi,lambda,D) and searching for transformations that collapse this hypersurface into a function of a composite parameter zeta= Planck's over 2 pi alpha)lambda beta D gamma. We report results for the quantum Cat Map and Duffing oscillator, showing accurate scaling behavior over a wide parameter range, indicating that this may be used to construct universality classes for this transition.

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Quantum-classical transition in nonlinear dynamical systems.

Viewed as approximations to quantum mechanics, classical evolutions can violate the positive semidefiniteness of the density matrix. The nature of the violation suggests a classification of dynamical systems based on classical-quantum correspondence; we show that this can be used to identify when environmental interaction (decoherence) will be unsuccessful in inducing the quantum-classical transition. In particular, the late-time Wigner function can become positive without any corresponding approach to classical dynamics. In the light of these results, we emphasize key issues relevant for experiments studying the quantum-classical transition.

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Wave analysis of ray chaos in underwater acoustics.

The dispersion of a wave packet in an acoustic medium is considered in the paraxial wave approximation, where the effective potential, due to variation of the speed of propagation, varies both with depth and propagation distance. The analysis of the resulting parabolic equation, similar to the Schrodinger equation, clearly demonstrates the role of ray chaos in enhancing the dispersion of the initial packet. However, wave coherence effects are also seen that suppress the effects of the ray chaos in a manner analogous to the effects of quantum chaos. (c) 1999 American Institute of Physics.

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