We study compound systems with a classical sector and a quantum sector. Among other consistency conditions we require a canonical structure, that is, a Lie bracket for the dynamical evolution of hybrid observables in the Heisenberg picture, interpolating between the Poisson bracket and the commutator. Weak and strong postulates are proposed. We explicitly construct one such hybrid bracket when the Hilbert space of the quantum sector is finite dimensional and show that it is unique if the strong postulates are enforced. The adjoint bracket for the Schrödinger picture version of the dynamics is also obtained. Unfortunately, preservation of the positivity of the density matrix under the evolution is not guaranteed. The case of a particle with classical position and momentum and quantum spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ is discussed and the spin-orbit dynamics is worked out.

• Received 16 December 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.95.012137