Abstract
We report the first experimental observation of the time-driven phase transition in a canonical quantum chaotic system, the quantum kicked rotor. The transition bears a firm analogy to a thermodynamic phase transition, with the time mimicking the temperature and the quantum expectation of the rotor’s kinetic energy mimicking the free energy. The transition signals a sudden change in the system’s memory behavior: before the critical time, the system undergoes chaotic motion in phase space and its memory of initial states is erased in the course of time; after the critical time, quantum interference enhances the probability for a chaotic trajectory to return to the initial state, and thus the system’s memory is recovered.
- Received 25 February 2018
- Corrected 29 January 2019
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.134101
© 2018 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Corrections
29 January 2019
Correction: The previously published Figs. 2 and 3 contained errors in the curve keys and the caption to Fig. 3 referred to the wrong equation. These errors have been fixed.