# Quantization ambiguity, ergodicity, and semiclassics

## Abstract

A simple argument shows that eigenstates of a classically ergodic system are individually ergodic on coarse-grained scales. This has implications for the quantization ambiguity in ergodic systems: the difference between alternative quantizations is suppressed compared with the $`O(\mathrm{}^2)`$ ambiguity in the integrable case. For two-dimensional ergodic systems in the high-energy regime, individual eigenstates are independent of the choice of quantization procedure, in contrast with the regular case, where even the ordering of eigenlevels is ambiguous. Surprisingly, semiclassical methods are shown to be much more precise for chaotic than for integrable systems.

For many years, it has been widely recognized that “quantizing” a given classical system is inherently an ambiguous procedure, as a large family of quantum Hamiltonians may have the same classical limit . For example, given the classical dynamics of a particle constrained to move on a closed loop, different choices of boundary condition give rise to different phases relating classical paths of different winding number. Knowledge of these Aharonov-Bohm phases is of course necessary to construct a semiclassical dynamics (which includes interference between classical paths), and thus many semiclassical theories correspond to the same classical dynamics. Physically, this $`O(\mathrm{})`$ or gauge ambiguity may be associated with the possibility of varying the magnetic flux enclosed by the loop.

This is not all, however: there are also many quantum theories, differing at $`O(\mathrm{}^2)`$ or higher in the Hamiltonian, which all have the same semi-classical limit. There are many ways of seeing this $`O(\mathrm{}^2)`$ ambiguity; one of the simplest is to imagine making a canonical transformation on the classical phase space, applying the canonical quantization prescription to the new coordinates, and then transforming back to the original coordinate system. Generically, one then obtains a new quantum Hamiltonian which differs from the original by $`O(\mathrm{}^2)`$ plus higher order terms:

$$\widehat{H}^{}=\widehat{H}+\mathrm{}^2\widehat{A}+\mathrm{},$$
(1)   
where the operator $`\widehat{A}`$ has a well-defined classical limit . As classical dynamics is of course independent of the choice of coordinate system, this implies that quantization is inherently ambiguous at second order in $`\mathrm{}`$.

An even more striking case is that of a particle constrained to move on a two-dimensional surface embedded in three-dimensional space. Here, the non-trivial metric contained in the kinetic term gives rise to obvious operator-ordering ambiguities in canonical quantization; this has led to much discussion in the literature over whether a term proportional to the local Gaussian curvature $`R`$ of the surface should be added to the Hamiltonian, and if so, what the proportionality constant should be (different prescriptions suggesting $`\mathrm{}^2R/8`$, $`\mathrm{}^2R/6`$, and $`\mathrm{}^2R/12`$ as the “correct” answer) . In the path integral approach, ambiguities at the same order arise in choosing how to incorporate the metric into the kernel and in deciding at what point in the infinitesimal time interval to evaluate functions of the metric . Physically, one may define dynamics on a constraint surface through a limiting process, where the strength of restoring forces causing the particle to live on the surface is taken to infinity . Classically, this procedure is known to give an unambiguous constrained dynamics; in quantum mechanics, $`O(\mathrm{}^2)`$ differences arise depending on the precise way in which the strength of the constraining potential is taken to infinity at various places along the surface . The ambiguity here has a clear physical meaning: to determine the true quantum mechanics one needs to know the mechanism through which the particle is bound to the surface of constraint; it is not sufficient to know only the intrinsic properties of the surface itself. Similarly, there is no “correct” answer to the problem of quantizing a classical double pendulum : quantum dynamics at $`O(\mathrm{}^2)`$ is determined by the precise way in which one takes to infinity the rigidity of the two rods.

In a two-dimensional system, the energy spacing between adjacent levels is $`O(\mathrm{}^2)`$, i.e. of the same order as the quantization ambiguity demonstrated above. It would then seem not to be possible to uniquely determine the eigenvalues and eigenstates of a two-dimensional system given only the classical dynamics on the two-dimensional surface. Similarly, it should not be generally possible to compute semiclassically the levels and wavefunctions of a two-dimensional quantum system, because a given semiclassical calculation has many quantum theories corresponding to it, with Hamiltonians related as in Eq. 1. Recently, however, it was shown (and numerically confirmed) that in strongly chaotic systems long-time semiclassical methods can in fact be used to compute quantum properties to accuracy much better than a level spacing, i.e. that individual wavefunctions and eigenenergies can be semiclassically resolved . This creates an apparent paradox, to be resolved in the present paper.

The answer is somewhat surprising: it is found that (i) the quantization ambiguity is greatly reduced for classically ergodic as compared with regular systems; (ii) in two dimensions, the ambiguity for ergodic systems is small compared to a level spacing, in contrast with the integrable case where even the ordering of eigenlevels is ambiguous; and (iii) unexpectedly, semiclassical methods are valid to much longer times in strongly chaotic as compared with integrable systems, allowing individual eigenenergies to be easily resolved. The key to these surprising results is the coarse-grained ergodicity of individual wavefunctions in classically ergodic systems. More precisely, in the classical limit, the quantum expectation value of any classically defined operator over individual eigenstates must approach the ergodic, microcanonical average of the operator, for almost all eigenstates. In effect, the fraction of eigenstates that deviate from ergodicity when smoothed over a finite mesh size in phase space must tend to zero in the $`\mathrm{}0`$ limit. This behavior has been studied mathematically under a variety of technical assumptions by Shnirelman, Zelditch, and Colin de Verdiere . Here we present a simple physical argument that demonstrates the generality of the result.

Let $`\widehat{A}`$ be an arbitrary quantum operator having the smooth phase space function $`A(q,p)`$ as its classical limit. Now we select any energy $`E_0`$ and choose a classically small energy window $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ such that the microcanonical average $`a(E)`$ of the function $`A(q,p)`$ is as close as one likes to a constant, $`a_0`$, for all $`E[E_0,E_0+\mathrm{\Delta }E]`$. Notice that in the $`\mathrm{}0`$ limit, the classically infinitesimal energy window will contain an arbitrarily large number of quantum eigenstates, $`N\mathrm{}^d`$ in $`d`$ dimensions. We wish to show that for any $`ϵ`$, there exists $`\mathrm{}`$ such that

$$\left(n|\widehat{A}|na_0\right)^2<ϵ^2,$$
(2)   
where the average is taken over all wavefunctions $`|n`$ in the energy window $`[E_0,E_0+\mathrm{\Delta }E]`$.

Consider the quantum correlator

$$f(t)=\mathrm{tr}\widehat{A}^{}\widehat{A}(t)=\mathrm{tr}\widehat{A}^{}e^{i\widehat{H}t}\widehat{A}e^{i\widehat{H}t},$$
(3)   
where the trace is over all states in the energy window. Now define the time-averaged correlator:

$`F(T)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi T}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑te^{t^2/2T^2}f(t)}`$ (4)   
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{n,n^{}=1}{\overset{N}{}}}\left|n|\widehat{A}|n^{}\right|^2e^{(E_nE_n^{})^2T^2/2}.`$ (5)   
$`F_{\mathrm{cl}}(T)`$, the time-averaged correlator of $`A(q,p)`$ and $`A(q(t),p(t))`$, is the classical counterpart of $`F(T)`$, and must by the definition of ergodicity tend to the ergodic value $`a_0^2`$ as $`T\mathrm{}`$. Now we simply choose $`T`$ large enough so that $`F_{\mathrm{cl}}(T)`$ is as close as we like to its long-time asymptotic value (say, within $`O(ϵ^2)`$), and then choose $`\mathrm{}`$ small enough so that the Ehrenfest time $`T_{\mathrm{Ehr}}`$ (the time at which classical–quantum correspondence breaks down) is large compared with $`T`$. \[Notice that for a hard chaotic system, the breakdown time $`T_{\mathrm{Ehr}}\lambda ^1\mathrm{log}\mathrm{}^1`$ as $`\mathrm{}0`$, where $`\lambda `$ is the Lyapunov exponent; however we make no specific assumption here about the system apart from its being ergodic.\] We then have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}}\left|n|\widehat{A}|n\right|^2F(\mathrm{})F(T)=a_0^2+O(ϵ^2).`$ (6)   
Now $`a_0`$ is of course the mean value of the matrix elements $`n|\widehat{A}|n`$ (which can be seen formally by considering the correlation of $`\widehat{A}(t)`$ with the identity operator), so Eq. 6 implies that the variance of the matrix elements is bounded by $`ϵ^2`$ (proving the statement of Eq. 2), and goes to zero in the $`\mathrm{}0`$ limit.

In the presence of symmetry-induced degeneracies, the argument above clearly holds for any choice of orthonormal eigenbasis $`|n`$. Furthermore, the difference between the first two quantities in Eq. 6 is also bounded above by $`O(ϵ^2)`$; this implies

$$n|\widehat{A}|n^{}0$$
(7)   
for almost all degenerate eigenstates $`|n`$ and $`|n^{}`$ in the $`\mathrm{}0`$ limit.

As an aside, we mention that the constraint $`F(\mathrm{})F(T)`$ (obtained from Eq. 4) allows us to circumvent the usual problem of noncommutativity of the $`\mathrm{}0`$ and $`T\mathrm{}`$ limits. Specifically, quantum approach to ergodicity at short times in the sense of $`F(T)a_0^2`$ guarantees quantum ergodicity at longer times where individual eigenstates are resolved.

The statistical argument presented here leaves open the possibility of a zero measure set of states grossly violating the ergodic condition $`n|\widehat{A}|na_0`$. This is not a deficiency in the argument: infinite sequences of highly non-ergodic states (namely, the bouncing-ball wavefunctions) have been shown to exist in chaotic systems with marginally stable classical orbits . The fraction of such states does go to zero in the classical high-energy limit, in accordance with the predictions of the theorem.

We also note that no assumptions have been made in the argument about “hard chaos” properties such as hyperbolicity or mixing; implications for the elimination of quantization ambiguity in two dimensions thus hold for all classically ergodic systems.

Coarse-grained quantum ergodicity is a much weaker and more general result than random matrix theory (RMT), which has been conjectured to be a statistical description of classically ergodic wavefunctions . The latter conjecture suggests ergodic behavior of quantum wavefunctions on single-wavelength scales, and is violated by scars  and other effects of short-time dynamics . For example, the quantum wavefunctions of the Sinai billiard, a paradigm of classical chaos, have been shown to have inverse participation ratios (IPR’s) that diverge in the classical limit away from their ergodic and RMT values . This strongly non-ergodic wavefunction behavior on scales of size $`\mathrm{}`$ is entirely consitent with ergodicity on coarse-grained scales as discussed above. It is easy to see that the ergodicity argument breaks down if $`\widehat{A}`$ does not have a well-defined classical limit. We may for example let $`\widehat{A}`$ be a projection onto a localized test state $`\widehat{A}=|aa|`$, but then we are not guaranteed to find a time $`T`$ where classical–quantum correspondence between $`F(T)`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{cl}}(T)`$ still holds, and simultaneously $`TT_{\mathrm{Ehr}}`$.

Comparing the result of Eq. 2 with Eq. 1, we see that the leading effect of a change in the quantization prescription is to shift all energy levels classically close to $`E_0`$ by a constant displacement $`\mathrm{}^2a_0`$ (comparable in size to a level spacing); perturbation theory then gives:

$$\delta E_nE_n^{}E_n=\mathrm{}^2(a_0+O(ϵ))$$
(8)   
with $`ϵ1`$ for small $`\mathrm{}`$ (high energy). In the special case of RMT, the energy hypersurface has $`M\mathrm{}^{1d}`$ Planck-sized cells: since the deviations $`ϵ`$ in the matrix elements $`n|\widehat{A}|n`$ arise from uncorrelated fluctuations in these cells, we then have

$$ϵ_{\mathrm{RMT}}\frac{1}{\sqrt{M}}\mathrm{}^{(d1)/2}.$$
(9)   
The relative shift between nearby energy levels compared to a level spacing is

$$\frac{\delta E_n\delta E_m}{\mathrm{}^d}\mathrm{}^{2d}ϵ\stackrel{\mathrm{RMT}}{}\mathrm{}^{(3d)/2}.$$
(10)   
The overall energy shift $`\mathrm{}^2a_0`$ is of course unphysical, corresponding simply to changing the Hamiltonian by a constant; only energy differences are measurable, and from the first relation in Eq. 10 we see that for $`d=2`$ these become independent of one’s choice of quantization in the $`\mathrm{}0`$ limit (i.e. for highly excited eigenstates). Energy splittings $`E_nE_m`$ which are already classically large can of course change by $`O(\mathrm{}^2)`$ as one considers different quantum systems with the same semiclassical limit. However, the ratio $`\delta (E_nE_m)/(E_nE_m)0`$ for almost all states $`|n`$, $`|m`$ in the semiclassical limit for $`d=2`$, whether $`|n`$ and $`|m`$ are nearest neighbor levels or are far apart in energy. Thus, in the classical limit of a $`d=2`$ constrained surface, the way in which the particle is bound to the surface has no effect on any measurable quantity, provided that motion on the constraint surface itself is ergodic. \[In the case of mixed phase space, states living on regular islands move up or down relative to the rigid chaotic sea, as the quantization is varied.\]

The result of Eq. 10 is consistent with the finding in  that in caustic-free chaotic $`d=2`$ systems, long-time semiclassical dynamics approaches the quantum answer, and that the critical dimension for breakdown of the semiclassical approximation at the Heisenberg time is $`d=3`$ for chaotic systems, as compared with $`d=2`$ in the integrable case.

For a simple numerical example of the above results, we consider a discrete-time map on a two-dimensional toroidal phase space $`(q,p)[0,1)\times [0,1)`$ (notice that this scales equivalently to a two-dimensional autonomous Hamiltonian system and can be thought of as a Poincaré section of the latter):

$`p\stackrel{~}{p}`$ $`=`$ $`pV^{}(q)\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}`$ (11)   
$`q\stackrel{~}{q}`$ $`=`$ $`q+\stackrel{~}{p}\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}.`$ (12)   
The above equations of motion can be obtained from the time-periodic (“kicked”) Hamiltonian

$$H=\frac{p^2}{2}+V(q)\underset{n}{}\delta (tn).$$
(13)   
We let the potential be given by

$$V(q)=\pm \frac{q^2}{2}+\frac{0.4}{(2\pi )^2}\mathrm{sin}2\pi q+rh^2\mathrm{cos}2\pi q,$$
(14)   
where the $``$ sign gives completely chaotic dynamics , while the $`+`$ sign leads to a (mostly) regular classical phase space. The $`\mathrm{sin}2\pi q`$ term is added to break parity symmetries and make the dynamics nonlinear and generic in both cases, while $`r`$ parametrizes a one-parameter family of possible quantizations.

A sample piece of the regular (solid curve) and chaotic (dashed curve) spectrum is shown in Fig. 1, as a function of the quantization parameter $`r`$. We see in the regular case that the eigenvalues often cross each other as the quantization is varied, making impossible a semiclassical ordering of the spectrum, while in the chaotic case the eigenvalues never shift by an amount comparable to a mean level spacing ($`0.0117`$ in this calculation). We notice that in our example the trace of $`A(q,p)=r\mathrm{cos}2\pi q`$ is zero, so the overall spectral shift $`\mathrm{}^2a_0`$ of Eq. 8 vanishes as well. For a different $`A(q,p)=r\left[\mathrm{cos}2\pi q\pm c\right]`$, there would be a secular upward or downward trend in all the eigenvalues (regular and chaotic) as $`r`$ increased, but no physical quantities would be affected.

Despite the exponential proliferation of classical paths in the chaotic case, semiclassical calculations past the Heisenberg time can be performed to arbitrary precision with only a power-law amount of effort, using an iterative approach, and individual semiclassical eigenvalues and eigenstates can be extracted . Semiclassically obtained eigenvalues for the chaotic system are indicated by arrows in Fig. 1 and are observed to agree well with the quantum results (independent of quantization). In the regular case, there is of course little meaning to semiclassically computed individual eigenvalues, and these are not shown.

In Fig. 2 we show the mean squared change in eigenlevel position, as a function of effective Planck’s constant (inverse momentum) $`h=1/64\mathrm{}1/1028`$, when the quantization parameter $`r`$ is changed from $`0.0`$ to $`3.0`$. The $`\times `$’s represent the regular case, and show that the quantization ambiguity there is large and energy-independent. The data points marked by squares correspond to the chaotic system, and clearly follow the linear law predicted by Eq. 10 (for $`d=2`$). Finally, the plusses come from the “slow ergodic” sawtooth potential map  defined by

$$V(q)=0.3\left|q\frac{1}{2}\right|,$$
(15)   
where the quantization ambiguity is now put in the kinetic term: $`H=\mathrm{}+rh^2\mathrm{cos}2\pi p`$. Here we do not expect quantum wavefunctions to be ergodic on the scale of a single channel in momentum space , but they will be ergodic on scales $`1/|\mathrm{log}\mathrm{}|`$ as $`\mathrm{}0`$. We then expect $`ϵ1/(\alpha +\beta \mathrm{log}\mathrm{})`$ in Eq. 10, which behavior is indeed observed in Fig. 2. We see that ergodicity without chaos is sufficient to obtain unambiguous quantization of $`d=2`$ systems, though the error in the high-energy limit approaches zero more slowly in the slow ergodic than in the fully hyperbolic case.

It is a pleasure to thank M. Wilkinson for initially stimulating this work and E. J. Heller for many fruitful discussions. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 66-701-7557-2-30.