DOE Science Showcase - Quantum Chaos | OSTI, US Dept of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Image courtesy Valerii Vinokur, Argonne National Laboratory/Science

Chaos is the nearly unpredictable behavior that even very simple systems can display due to their sensitivity to small variations in their present conditions. Many interesting things—a beating heart, the weather, or planetary motion—exhibit this kind of sensitivity.

This sensitivity is consistent with classical, pre-20th century theories of physical law, but classical theories are known to be incomplete. Quantum theory has been found for about a century to account for a much wider range of phenomena, including atomic and smaller phenomena that classical theory gets completely wrong, so quantum physics is thought to underlie all physical processes. Yet it’s not immediately apparent how quantum physical laws allow for chaotic systems’ sensitivity to their initial conditions. One recognition of this difficulty was presented by Albert Einstein as early as 1917, but widespread attempts to deal with it only emerged at the end of the 20th century.

Quantum chaos, a branch of physics that attempts to understand the connection between the two phenomena, is opening up a new world of research opportunity. Researchers are taking the conditions that cause chaotic behavior in everyday objects and are studying them on the atomic level. Quantum chaos is being used as a launching point to create new models in the exotic, quantum world to further understand the familiar, classical models of physics. Applications are anticipated in energy capture, batteries and energy storage, electronic transistors and more. Read more about quantum chaos theory in Dr. William Watson’s latest white paper In the OSTI Collections: Quantum Chaos, in selected quantum chaos research papers from DOE databases, and related resources listed below.