title: Environment-independent decoherence rate in classically chaotic systems.
abstract: We study the decoherence of a one-particle system, whose classical correspondent is chaotic, when it evolves coupled to a weak quenched environment. This is done by analytical evaluation of the Loschmidt echo (i.e., the revival of a localized density excitation upon reversal of its time evolution), in the presence of the perturbation. We predict an exponential decay for the Loschmidt echo with a (decoherence) rate which is asymptotically given by the mean Lyapunov exponent of the classical system, and therefore independent of the perturbation strength, within a given range of strengths. Our results are consistent with recent experiments of polarization echoes in nuclear magnetic resonance and numerical simulations.
authors: Université Louis Pasteur, IPCMS-GEMME, Strasbourg, France.
authors: R A
authors: RA
authors: Jalabert
authors: H M
authors: HM
authors: Pastawski