Quantum Molecular Trajectory and Its Statistical Properties

Ergodicity and Born's rule in an entangled three-qubit Bohmian system

We study in detail the interplay between chaos and entanglement in the Bohmian trajectories of three entangled qubits, made of coherent states of the quantum harmonic oscillator. We find that all the three-dimensional (3D) chaotic trajectories are ergodic; namely, they have a common long time distribution of points regardless of the initial conditions, and for any nonzero entanglement, their number is much larger than in the corresponding two-qubit system. Furthermore, the range of entanglements for which practically all the trajectories are chaotic and ergodic is much larger than in the two-qubit case. Thus, as the dimensionality of the system increases, Born's rule becomes accessible to a wider range of arbitrary initial distributions than in the 2D case. Our numerical results lead to the conjecture that, for multiqubit systems, Born's rule is the limit of almost all initial distributions of particles.

Ergodicity and Born's rule in an entangled two-qubit Bohmian system

We study the Bohmian trajectories of a generic entangled two-qubit system, composed of coherent states of two harmonic oscillators with noncommensurable frequencies and focus on the relation between ergodicity and the dynamical approach to Born's rule for arbitrary distributions of initial conditions. We find that most Bohmian trajectories are ergodic and establish the same invariant ergodic limiting distributions of their points for any nonzero amount of entanglement. In the case of strong entanglement the distribution satisfying Born's rule is dominated by chaotic-ergodic trajectories. Therefore, P→|Ψ|^{2} for an arbitrary P_{0}. However, when the entanglement is weak the distribution satisfying Born's rule is dominated by ordered trajectories, which are not ergodic. In this case the ergodic trajectories do not, in general, lead to the distribution of Born's rule, therefore P=|Ψ|^{2} is guaranteed only if P_{0}=|Ψ_{0}|^{2}. Consequently, the existence of chaotic and ergodic Bohmian trajectories does not always lead to the dynamical establishment of Born's rule.

Quantum Stochastic Trajectories: The Fokker-Planck-Bohm Equation Driven by the Reduced Density Matrix

The quantum molecular trajectory is the deterministic trajectory, arising from the Bohm theory, that describes the instantaneous positions of the nuclei of molecules by assuring the agreement with the predictions of quantum mechanics. Therefore, it provides the suitable framework for representing the geometry and the motions of molecules without neglecting their quantum nature. However, the quantum molecular trajectory is extremely demanding from the computational point of view, and this strongly limits its applications. To overcome such a drawback, we derive a stochastic representation of the quantum molecular trajectory, through projection operator techniques, for the degrees of freedom of an open quantum system. The resulting Fokker-Planck operator is parametrically dependent upon the reduced density matrix of the open system. Because of the pilot role played by the reduced density matrix, this stochastic approach is able to represent accurately the main features of the open system motions both at equilibrium and out of equilibrium with the environment. To verify this procedure, the predictions of the stochastic and deterministic representation are compared for a model system of six interacting harmonic oscillators, where one oscillator is taken as the open quantum system of interest. The undeniable advantage of the stochastic approach is that of providing a simplified and self-contained representation of the dynamics of the open system coordinates. Furthermore, it can be employed to study the out of equilibrium dynamics and the relaxation of quantum molecular motions during photoinduced processes, like photoinduced conformational changes and proton transfers.

Quantum stochastic trajectories: the Smoluchowski-Bohm equation

Molecular systems are quantum systems, but the complete characterization of molecular motions within a fully quantum framework might appear to be an unfeasible task because it would require that the actual nuclear positions are established at any time. One would like to use a quantum molecular trajectory that defines the instantaneous nuclear positions and satisfies the predictions of quantum mechanics in terms of its statistical properties. Even though it can be proven that the single Bohm trajectory provides a representation of the quantum molecular trajectory, this solves the issue only on a theoretical ground: exact solutions of the Schrödinger-Bohm dynamical system are extremely computationally demanding. Therefore, we derive a stochastic equation of Smoluchowski type from the Schrödinger-Bohm dynamics, through projection operator techniques, in order to characterize the molecular motions of open quantum systems. The main quantum features of the motions emerge from the equilibrium distribution, i.e., the wave function's squared modulus integrated on the environment degrees of freedom. Furthermore, we verify the accuracy of the stochastic equation by comparing its predictions with those of the deterministic dynamics for a model system of six interacting harmonic oscillators. The indisputable advantage of this full quantum mechanical approach is that of representing the molecular dynamics, which controls important phenomena like vibrational relaxation, conformational transitions and activated processes, in a self consistent way and at the low computational cost of solving simple stochastic equations.