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# Quasinormal modes of d-dimensional spherical black holes with a near extreme cosmological constant

## I Introduction

Recent observational results suggest that the universe in large scale is described by an Einstein equation with an (at least effective) cosmological constant. In this context, the dynamics of fields in spacetimes which are not asymptotically flat has taken on new importance. Quasinormal modes are a fundamental part of this dynamics. In general, perturbations in the spacetime exterior of a black hole are followed by oscillations which decay exponentially in time. Roughly speaking, these are quasinormal modes, complex frequency modes which carry information about the background geometry, and are independent of the initial perturbation. The characterization of the quasinormal modes originated from compact objects are of particular relevance in gravitational wave astronomy Kokkotas-99 . Their detection is expected to be realized through gravitational wave observations in the near future.

In asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetimes, the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence AdS-CFT  plays a very important role. In this framework, a link is established among the quasinormal frequencies of a test field in AdS black holes and the decay rates in the dual field theory. The first study of the scalar quasinormal modes in AdS space was performed by Chan and Mann Chan-97 . For Bañados-Teitelboim-Zanelli (BTZ) black holes, exact expressions for the quasinormal modes were obtained by Cardoso and Lemos for scalar, electromagnetic, and Weyl perturbations Cardoso-01-1 . In this context, the connection of CFT and quasinormal modes was explored by Birmingham *et al.* Birmingham . The problem in higher dimensions was considered by Horowitz and Hubeny Horowitz-00 . Their basic results were confirmed in Wang-01  by direct calculation of the wave functions. Some other perturbations in AdS backgrounds were treated in perturb-AdS .

For asymptotically de Sitter spacetimes, similar conjectures have been formulated. Strominger Strominger-01  proposed a holographic duality relating quantum gravity on $`d`$-dimensional de Sitter space (dSd) to a conformal field theory residing on the past boundary of dSd. This dS/CFT correspondence has motivated several works (as, e.g., dS-CFT ).

A very different and intriguing application of quasinormal modes have been suggested recently. In the context of loop quantum gravity, it has been shown that the area of the event horizon is quantized, but the expression involves a free quantity, the Barbero-Immirzi parameter. Hod noticed that the asymptotic real part of the quasinormal frequency of the Schwarzschild black hole is proportional to $`\mathrm{ln}3`$ Hod-98 . This observation was applied by Dreyer to fix the Barbero-Immirzi parameter Dreyer-03 . And in Motl-02 , Motl proved Hod’s observation. Kunstatter used these ideas Kunstatter-02  to propose a Bekenstein-Hawking entropy spectrum for $`d`$-dimensional spherically symmetric black holes. In Abdalla-03 , Abdalla, Castello-Branco, and Lima-Santos proposed an area quantization prescription for the near extreme Schwarzschild-de Sitter and Kerr black holes.

Calculating analytic expressions for the quasinormal frequencies is usually difficult, except in particular situations. Approximation schemes were developed to circumvent this problem approx . One case where analytic expressions were found is the Pöschl-Teller potential Poschl-33 . For this potential, many properties have been proved and the frequencies have been calculated Ferrari-84 ; Beyer-99 . In a recent work Cardoso-03 , Cardoso and Lemos studied the Schwarzschild-de Sitter geometry in four dimensions, and showed that the dynamics is specified by a Pöschl-Teller effective potential. They calculated exact expressions for the quasinormal modes, demonstrating why a previous approximation made by Moss and Norman Moss-02  hold in the near extreme regime.

In the present work, we generalize the method used by Cardoso and Lemos in Cardoso-03 . We analyze scalar fields, massless and massive, in the $`d`$-dimensional Schwarzschild-de Sitter (SdS) and Reissner-Nordström-de Sitter (RNdS) geometry. The approach here is a bottom-up one. In the next section, the horizon structure of the $`d`$-dimensional Schwarzschild-de Sitter is discussed. The geometry of the block outside the event horizon is then treated in the near extreme limit. In Sec. IV, we show that the ideas developed in the previous sections can be applied to more general spacetimes, including the $`d`$-dimensional Reissner-Nordström-de Sitter black holes. In Sec. V, the dynamics of the scalar field in spherical backgrounds is discussed, and analytical formulas for the quasinormal frequencies are calculated. In Sec. VI some final remarks are made.

## II Schwarzschild-de Sitter Metric

The metric describing a $`d`$-dimensional nonasymptotically flat spherical black hole was presented in Thangherlini-63 . Written in spherical coordinates, the Schwarzschild-de Sitter metric is given by

$$ds^2=h(r)dt^2+h(r)^1dr^2+r^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_{d2}^2,$$
(1)
where the function $`h(r)`$ is

$$h(r)=1\frac{2m}{r^{d3}}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }r^2}{3}.$$
(2)
The integration constant $`m`$ is proportional to the black hole mass, and $`d\mathrm{\Omega }_{d2}^2`$ is the line element of the ($`d2`$)-dimensional unit sphere:

$`d\mathrm{\Omega }_{d2}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\left(d\theta ^1\right)^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta ^1\left(d\theta ^1\right)^2+\mathrm{}`$ (3)
$`+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta ^1\mathrm{}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta ^{d2}\left(d\theta ^{d2}\right)^2.`$
If the cosmological constant is positive, the spacetime is asymptotically de Sitter. In this case, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is usually written in terms of a “cosmological radius” $`a`$ as

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=\frac{3}{a^2}.$$
(4)
The causal structure of the spacetime described by the metric presented depends of the positive real roots of the function $`h(r)`$. By rescaling the metric and the coordinates $`t`$ and $`r`$, it can be seen that only one parameter is necessary to characterize the set of possible zeros of $`h(r)`$. Indeed, if the mass is nonvanishing, a convenient parameter is $`m^2/a^{2(d3)}`$. We will classify the possible horizons of the spacetime in the following proposition.

###### Proposition 1

Let $`d4`$, $`a^2>0`$ and $`m>0`$.

* The spacetime has two horizons if and only if the condition

$$\frac{m^2}{a^{2(d3)}}<\frac{(d3)^{d3}}{(d1)^{d1}}$$
(5)
is satisfied. This is the usual $`d`$-dimensional Schwarzschild-de Sitter black hole.
* The spacetime has one horizon if and only if the condition

$$\frac{m^2}{a^{2(d3)}}=\frac{(d3)^{d3}}{(d1)^{d1}}$$
(6)
is satisfied. This is the extreme Schwarzschild-de Sitter black hole.
* The spacetime has no horizon if and only if the condition

$$\frac{m^2}{a^{2(d3)}}>\frac{(d3)^{d3}}{(d1)^{d1}}$$
(7)
is satisfied.

From proposition 1 we learn that the global structure of the manifolds described by the Schwarzschild-de Sitter metric is largely independent of the dimension. With a small value of $`m^2/a^{2(d3)}`$, this metric describes a spacetime with two horizons — an event horizon $`r_+`$ and a cosmological horizon $`r_c`$ ($`0<r_+<r_c`$). The region of interest in this paper is the block

$$T_+=\left\{(t,r,\theta _1,\mathrm{},\theta _{d2}),r_+<r<r_c\right\}.$$
(8)
In the critical value, the event horizon and the cosmological horizon coincide. This is the extreme Schwarzschild-de Sitter black hole. When $`m^2/a^{2(d3)}`$ is larger than the critical value, the metric no longer describes a black hole.

## III Near Extreme Schwarzschild-de Sitter Black Hole

Since we are interested in the limit where the event and cosmological horizons are very close, it is natural to define the dimensionless parameter $`\delta ^{}`$ as

$$\delta ^{}=\frac{r_cr_+}{a},$$
(9)
so that the near extreme limit is such that

$$0<\delta ^{}1.$$
(10)
In the Schwarzschild-de Sitter (SdS) black hole case, however, it is convenient to use another dimensionless parameter $`\overline{\delta }`$, defined as

$$\overline{\delta }=\sqrt{1\frac{m^2}{a^{2(d3)}}\frac{(d1)^{d1}}{(d3)^{d3}}}.$$
(11)
It is clear from proposition 1 that the near extreme SdS black hole corresponds to the limit

$$0<\overline{\delta }1.$$
(12)
The limits (10) and (12) are equivalent. Furthermore, it can be shown that they go to zero at the same rate:

$$\overline{\delta }=\frac{d1}{2}\delta ^{}+O(\delta ^2).$$
(13)
In the Schwarzschild-de Sitter scenario, the function $`h(r)`$ has one local maximum $`r_0`$ in the interval $`[r_+,r_c]`$. This point can be expressed in terms of the parameters $`m`$ and $`a`$ as

$$r_0=\left[(d3)ma^2\right]^{1/(d1)}.$$
(14)
Near the extreme limit, the function $`h(r)`$ can be approximated by its Taylor expansion up to the second order in $`\delta ^{}`$ around the local maximum $`r=r_0`$:

$$h(r)=h(r_0)+\frac{a^2}{2}\frac{d^2h(r)}{dr^2}|_{r=r_0}\left(\frac{rr_0}{a}\right)^2+O\left(\delta ^3\right).$$
(15)
To lowest order $`\delta ^{}`$ and $`\overline{\delta }`$ are proportional, and the expression (15) can be written as

$$h(r)=\frac{d1}{a^2}\left(r_c^{ap}r\right)\left(rr_+^{ap}\right)+O\left(\overline{\delta }^3\right),$$
(16)
where the constants $`r_+^{ap}`$ and $`r_{}^{ap}`$ are approximations of the event and cosmological horizons, given by

$`r_c^{ap}`$ $`=`$ $`r_0+a\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{1\left(1\overline{\delta }^2\right)^{\frac{1}{d1}}}{d1}}}`$ (17)
$`=`$ $`a\left(\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{d3}{d1}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\delta }}{d1}}\right)+O\left(\overline{\delta }^2\right),`$
$`r_+^{ap}`$ $`=`$ $`r_0a\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{1\left(1\overline{\delta }^2\right)^{\frac{1}{d1}}}{d1}}}`$ (18)
$`=`$ $`a\left(\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{d3}{d1}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\delta }}{d1}}\right)+O\left(\overline{\delta }^2\right).`$
The next step is to calculate the tortoise radial function $`x(r)`$, defined at the block $`T_+`$ in the usual way,

$`x(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{dr}{h(r)}}`$ (19)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\kappa _c^{ap}}}\mathrm{ln}\left(r_c^{ap}r\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\kappa _+^{ap}}}\mathrm{ln}\left(rr_+^{ap}\right)`$
$`+O\left(\overline{\delta }^3\right),`$
where the constants $`\kappa _c^{ap}`$ and $`\kappa _+^{ap}`$ are

$$\kappa _c^{ap}=\kappa _+^{ap}=\frac{d1}{2a^2}\left(r_c^{ap}r_+^{ap}\right)=\frac{\overline{\delta }}{a}+O\left(\overline{\delta }^2\right).$$
(20)
Observe that these constants are approximations to the surface gravities of the event and cosmological horizons, which tend to zero in the extreme limit.

The key point is that, in this limit, the function $`x(r)`$ can be analytically inverted. With the expression for $`r(x)`$, the function $`h(x)h\left(r(x)\right)`$ can be explicitly calculated

$$h(x)=\frac{\overline{\delta }^2}{d1}\frac{1}{\mathrm{cosh}^2(\kappa _+^{ap}x)}+O\left(\overline{\delta }^3\right).$$
(21)
All the constants in Eq. (21) can be obtained from the parameters $`m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$.

The approach used here to treat the near extreme Schwarzschild-de Sitter black hole can be generalized. In the next section we will see that $`h(x)`$ in the expression (21) have the same form in a broader class of near extreme spacetimes.

## IV More General Setting

The fact that the function $`h(r)`$ for the $`d`$-dimensional Schwarzschild-de Sitter black hole can be written in the form (16) is not a particularity of this specific geometry. Basically, all we have used is the following:

* The function $`h(r)`$ has at least two positive real roots $`r_1`$ and $`r_2`$ ($`r_1<r_2`$). If $`r_1`$ and $`r_2`$ are consecutive roots, we are interested in the submanifold given by the block

$$T_1=\left\{(t,r,\theta _1,\mathrm{},\theta _{d2}),r_1<r<r_2\right\}.$$
(22)
* The function $`h(r)`$ is, at least, a $`C^3`$ function at the interval $`[r_1,r_2]`$.
* The points $`r_1`$ and $`r_2`$ are simple roots of $`h(r)`$.
* There is a near extreme limit, a region of the parameter space where the horizons are arbitrarily close, such that

$$0<\frac{r_2r_1}{r_1}1.$$
(23)

Since $`h(r)`$ is continuous, there is a maximum or minimum point $`r_0]r_1,r_2[`$. But in general the analytical determination of $`r_0`$ in terms of the parameters of the metric is not easy. It is convenient then to consider $`r_1`$, $`r_2`$, and $`\kappa _1`$ as the fundamental parameters of the spacetime, where $`\kappa _1`$ is the surface gravity at the horizon $`r=r_1`$.

In terms of these parameters, the function $`h(r)`$ can be approximated, in the near extreme limit, as

$$h(r)=\frac{2\kappa _1}{r_2r_1}(r_2r)(rr_1)+O\left(\delta ^3\right),$$
(24)
with $`\delta =(r_2r_1)/r_1`$. The tortoise function $`x(r)`$, whose domain is the interval $`]r_1,r_2[`$, can be easily calculated from the expression (24). From its inverse $`r(x)`$ it is straightforward to obtain $`h(x)`$:

$$h(x)=\frac{(r_2r_1)\kappa _1}{2\mathrm{cosh}^2(\kappa _1x)}+O\left(\delta ^3\right).$$
(25)
One possible generalization of the $`d`$-dimensional Schwarzschild-de Sitter geometry is the metric in the form (1) with the function $`h(r)`$ given by

$$h(r)=1\frac{2m}{r^{d3}}+\frac{q^2}{r^{2d6}}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }r^2}{3}.$$
(26)
This is the $`d`$-dimensional Reissner-Nordström-de Sitter metric Thangherlini-63 , which describes a charged black hole asymptotically de Sitter. The integration constants $`m`$ and $`q`$ are proportional to the black hole mass and electric charge.

The parameter space for the RNdS metric is much more complex than the SdS case. It can be shown that the function $`h(r)`$, for arbitrary $`d`$, has at most three positive real roots (plus negative roots). And if the number of positive roots is three, they are simple. These roots are the Cauchy ($`r_{}`$), event ($`r_+`$), and cosmological ($`r_c`$) horizons, with $`0<r_{}<r_+<r_c`$. The function $`h(r)`$ is smooth in both intervals $`]r_{},r_+[`$ and $`]r_+,r_c[`$, and there are regions of the parameter space in which the intervals collapse to points.

The conditions shown in the beginning of this section therefore apply to the RNdS metric, and we have two possible near extreme situations for the RNdS metric, where $`r_{}r_+`$ and $`r_+r_c`$. Although the work developed in this section applies for both cases, we are mainly interested in the second one. We will therefore specify the work to the near extreme $`T_+`$ block of the Schwarzschild-de Sitter and Reissner-Nordström-de Sitter metric.

## V Effective Potential and Quasinormal Modes

We introduce in the $`d`$-dimensional SdS or RNdS spacetime a real scalar field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, with mass $`\mu 0`$, described by the equation

$$\left(\mathrm{}\mu ^2\right)\mathrm{\Phi }=0.$$
(27)
Expanding the field in (hyper)spherical harmonics, in the form

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=\underset{\mathrm{}m}{}r^{(d2)/2}\psi _{\mathrm{}}(t,r)\text{Y}_\mathrm{}m(\{\theta _i\}),$$
(28)
we get a decoupled wave equation for each value of $`\mathrm{}`$. In terms of the coordinates $`t`$ and $`x`$, this equation reads

$$\frac{^2\psi _{\mathrm{}}}{t^2}+\frac{^2\psi _{\mathrm{}}}{x^2}=V(x)\psi _{\mathrm{}}.$$
(29)
The effective potential $`V(x)V(r(x))`$ is obtained using the function $`r(x)`$ and the effective potential in terms of the radial coordinate $`r`$:

$$V(r)=h(r)\mathrm{\Omega }(r),$$
(30)
with the function $`\mathrm{\Omega }(r)`$ given by

$`\mathrm{\Omega }(r)`$ $`=`$ $`\mu ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+d3)}{r^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{d2}{2r}}h^{}(r)`$ (31)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{(d2)(d4)}{4r^2}}h(r).`$
Expanding the function $`V(r)`$ around the point $`r=(r_++r_c)/2`$, we have, for $`\mathrm{}>0`$ or $`\mu >0`$:

$$V(r)=\left[\frac{\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+d3)}{r_+^2}+\mu ^2\right]\frac{2\kappa _+(r_cr)(rr_+)}{r_cr_+}+O(\delta ).$$
(32)
The expression (32) for $`V(r)`$ is not useful when $`\mu =\mathrm{}=0`$ because in this case $`V(r)=0+O(\delta )`$. Assuming $`\mathrm{}>0`$ or $`\mu >0`$, we calculate the function $`V(x)`$ as

$$V(x)=\frac{V_0}{\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\kappa _+x\right)}+O(\delta ),$$
(33)
where the constant $`V_0`$ is given by

$$V_0=\left[\frac{\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+d3)}{r_+^2}+\mu ^2\right]\frac{(r_cr_+)\kappa _+}{2}.$$
(34)
The effective potential $`V(x)`$ in the expression (33) is the Pöschl-Teller potential Poschl-33 , which has been extensively studied. In particular, attention has been dedicated to the quasinormal modes associated Ferrari-84 ; Beyer-99 . One way to introduce the problem Kokkotas-99 ; Nollert-92  is Laplace transforming the wave equation (29), so the problem can be put as a Cauchy initial value problem. It is found that there is a discrete set of possible values to $`s`$ such that the function $`\widehat{\psi }_{\mathrm{}}`$, the Laplace transformed field, satisfies both boundary conditions:

$$\underset{x\mathrm{}}{lim}\widehat{\psi }_{\mathrm{}}e^{sx}=1,$$
(35)
$$\underset{x+\mathrm{}}{lim}\widehat{\psi }_{\mathrm{}}e^{sx}=1.$$
(36)
By making the formal replacement $`s=i\omega `$, we have the usual quasinormal mode boundary conditions. The frequencies $`\omega `$ (or $`s`$) are called quasinormal frequencies.

Using the result (34), we find that for both Schwarzschild-de Sitter and Reissner-Nordström-de Sitter cases we have

$$\frac{\omega }{\kappa _+}=\sqrt{\left[\frac{\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+d3)}{r_+^2}+\mu ^2\right]\frac{r_cr_+}{2\kappa _+}\frac{1}{4}}i\left(n+\frac{1}{2}\right).$$
(37)
For the SdS geometry, $`V_0`$ can be written in terms of $`m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The real and imaginary parts of the quasinormal frequencies in this case are

$`\text{Re}(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{d2}}{3^{d2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(d1)^{d1}}{(d3)^{d3}}}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ (38)
$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+d3)}{d3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{3\mu ^2}{(d1)\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}},`$
$$\text{Im}(\omega )=\left(n+\frac{1}{2}\right)\left[\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{3}\frac{m^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{d2}}{3^{d2}}\frac{(d1)^{d1}}{(d3)^{d3}}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}},$$
(39)
with $`n\{0,1,\mathrm{}\}`$ labelling the modes.

## VI Conclusions

We have studied a scalar field outside the event horizon of spherical $`d`$-dimensional black holes with near extreme cosmological constant. Its dynamics is determined by a Pöschl-Teller effective potential, which allows us to calculate analytic expressions for the quasinormal frequencies. In the Schwarzschild-de Sitter case, the parameter space can be precisely characterized. As a consequence, the quasinormal modes can be written in terms of the parameters $`m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ of the metric.

Our results generalize the previous conclusions obtained in Cardoso-03 . In particular, we see that the real part of the quasinormal frequencies does not depend on the mode ($`n`$), and that the relaxation time of the field is independent of its mass. We also demonstrate that the addition of charge to the black hole or mass to the scalar field does not alter the basic characteristics of the field dynamics in the near extreme regime.

Since we are imposing spherical symmetry, it is not too surprising that the field evolution is qualitatively independent of the dimension. However, it is interesting to note that the explicit expressions of the frequencies are very similar for any value of $`d`$. It would be instructive to see if this happens in non-spherical geometries.

###### Acknowledgements.

The author is grateful to E. Abdalla for very useful discussions and encouragement. This work was supported by *Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)*, Brazil.


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# Decay of the classical Loschmidt echo in integrable systems

## I Introduction

The study of the relation between classical and quantum dynamical chaos has greatly improved our understanding of the behavior of quantum systems. An issue which may be of interest in several situations is the stability of motion. In this respect, even though Liouville equation, which governs the evolution of classical distribution functions, is linear, the exponential sensitivity of classical trajectories with respect to perturbing the initial conditions leads to a strong dynamical instability, and characterizes classical chaos. Like the classical Liouville equation, the Schrödinger equation is also linear. However, the quantum evolution of states is stable and this qualitative difference is clearly apparent in the Loschmidt echo numerical experiments of Ref. . The problem of the stability of quantum motion under perturbations in the Hamiltonian has recently gained a renewed interest , also in connection with quantum computation . The quantity of central interest in these investigations is the fidelity $`f_q(t)`$ (also called Loschmidt echo), which measures the accuracy to which a quantum state can be recovered by inverting, at time $`t`$, the dynamics with a perturbed Hamiltonian. The main interest has been focused on classically chaotic systems for which, besides numerical experiments, some theoretical tools are available, like random matrix theory and semiclassical methods. However, in the general case, the phase space structure is mixed with chaotic components and islands of stability. If the motion starts inside an integrable island, then it very much resembles the motion in integrable systems. Contrary to chaotic systems, which are dynamically unstable but structurally stable, integrable systems are dynamically stable but very sensitive to external perturbations. Therefore the analysis of the fidelity requires particular care and one may expect it to be dependent on initial conditions and on the type of perturbation. Indeed, the decay of fidelity in integrable systems has been discussed in recent papers , and very different behaviors have been found. Jacquod et al. have shown the existence of a regime in which the quantum fidelity for classically integrable systems decays as a power law, with an anomalous exponent of purely quantum origin . Prosen and Žnidarič have instead discussed a regime in which quantum fidelity exhibits a much faster Gaussian decay . Both regimes have been also discussed by Eckhardt in his analysis of the decay of classical fidelity , in which the problem of the evolution of classical phase space densities has been addressed for linearized flows.

In the present paper, we discuss the behavior of fidelity for integrable classical systems. Besides being of interest on its own, our classical study will allow us to understand the main mechanisms for the fidelity decay and therefore will constitute a valuable reference point for the quantum analysis. Here we show the existence of a critical border depending on the shape of the perturbation, which separates two different types of fidelity decay: a power law decay $`1/t^n`$, where $`n`$ is the dimension of the system, and a much faster decay of ballistic type. We stress that the type of decay depends on initial conditions and on the shape of the perturbation but, for small enough perturbations, not on its strength. We derive an analytical expression for the critical border and our theoretical results are confirmed by a numerical analysis on three different models: the twist map, the rectangular billiard and the kicked rotor.

The outline of the paper is as follows: In Section II we develop a general theory for the decay of classical fidelity in integrable systems. Section III demonstrates numerically the validity of our theory in two different typical examples of integrable systems, the twist map and the rectangular billiard, and in an almost integrable system, the kicked rotor. Our conclusions are drawn in Section IV. Finally, in the Appendix A, we discuss the long-time relaxation to equilibrium.

## II Theory

The quantum fidelity is defined as the overlap at time $`t`$ of the states $`|\psi (t)`$ and $`|\psi _ϵ(t)`$, obtained by the evolution of the same initial state $`|\psi (0)`$ with the unperturbed Hamiltonian $`H_0`$ and the perturbed Hamiltonian $`H_0+ϵV`$, respectively. The fidelity is then given by

$$f_q(t)=\left|\psi (t)|\psi _ϵ(t)\right|^2.$$
(1)
This expression can be equivalently rewritten in terms of the Wigner functions as

$$f_q(t)=(2\pi \mathrm{})^nd^n𝐪d^n𝐩W_ϵ(𝐪,𝐩;t)W(𝐪,𝐩;t),$$
(2)
where $`n`$ is the number of degrees of freedom. Since the Wigner functions can be considered as the quantum analogues of the classical phase space densities, we define the classical fidelity as

$$f(t)=d^n𝐪d^n𝐩\rho _ϵ(𝐪,𝐩;t)\rho (𝐪,𝐩;t),$$
(3)
where $`\rho ,\rho _ϵ`$ are the square normalized classical phase space densities ($`d^n𝐪d^n𝐩\rho ^2=d^n𝐪d^n𝐩\rho _ϵ^2=1`$). We note that $`f(t)`$ is the classical limit of $`f_q(t)`$. As the density evolution is unitary in both classical and quantum mechanics, instead of evolving two densities forward in time and calculating their overlap, we may first evolve the initial density $`\rho _0`$ forward in time with the unperturbed Hamiltonian $`H_0`$, and then evolve this density backward in time with the perturbed Hamiltonian $`H_0+ϵV`$. We denote the density obtained in such a way as $`\rho _{2t}`$. The fidelity is then given by the overlap of the density $`\rho _{2t}`$ with the initial density $`\rho _0`$:

$$f(t)=d^n𝐪d^n𝐩\rho _{2t}(𝐪,𝐩)\rho _0(𝐪,𝐩).$$
(4)
Such an approach is more convenient for our discussion of the classical fidelity of integrable systems.

For the following discussion we assume that the perturbation of the integrable system is of the KAM type, namely that, for small enough perturbations $`ϵV`$, most of the tori of the system are only slightly deformed but not destroyed. Therefore for most of the tori the transformation from old action-angle variables $`𝐈,𝚯`$ to new ones $`𝐈^{},𝚯^{}`$ is possible, in such a way that the new actions are constants of motion of the perturbed system. To the first order in the perturbation strength $`ϵ`$ the transformation can be written as

$`𝚯^{}`$ $`=`$ $`𝚯+ϵ𝐟(𝐈,𝚯),`$ (5)
$`𝐈^{}`$ $`=`$ $`𝐈+ϵ𝐠(𝐈,𝚯).`$ (6)
After the forward unperturbed evolution up to time $`t`$ we have

$$𝚯_t=𝚯_0+𝛀(𝐈)t.$$
(7)
Then we perform a backward evolution of the perturbed system from time $`t`$ to time $`2t`$, getting

$$𝚯_{2t}^{}=𝚯_t^{}𝛀^{}(𝐈^{})t.$$
(8)
The frequency vectors $`𝛀`$ and $`𝛀^{}`$ characterize the linear (in time) evolution of the angle variables in integrable systems. Expressed in the original action-angle variables, the overall evolution can be written as

$$𝚯_{2t}=𝚯_0+\left(𝛀(𝐈)𝛀^{}(𝐈^{})\right)t+𝒪(ϵ),$$
(9)
where the error term $`𝒪(ϵ)`$ is due to the change from one set of variables to the other at time $`t`$ and the reverse change at time $`2t`$. Since the perturbation is small, we may write the change in frequency as

$$𝛀^{}(𝐈^{})=𝛀(𝐈)+\mathrm{\Delta }𝛀(𝐈)+\frac{𝛀}{𝐈}(𝐈^{}𝐈)+𝒪(ϵ^2),$$
(10)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝛀𝛀^{}(𝐈)𝛀(𝐈)`$ denotes the change of frequencies on the unperturbed torus $`𝐈`$ and $`𝐈^{}𝐈`$ gives the change of the action variables caused by the perturbation (written in Eq. (6) to the first order in $`ϵ`$).

If we consider the angle variables to be uniformly distributed at the time $`t`$ at which the motion is inverted, we may introduce the distribution

$$W_𝐈\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }𝐈}{ϵ}\right)=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^n}d^n𝚯\delta \left[\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }𝐈(𝐈^{}(𝐈,𝚯)𝐈))}{ϵ}\right],$$
(11)
which gives the probability density for the transition from the torus characterized by the action variables $`𝐈`$ in the unperturbed coordinates to the torus with action variables $`𝐈^{}`$ in the perturbed coordinates. The $`ϵ`$ scaling has been chosen in order for the function $`W_𝐈`$ itself not to depend on $`ϵ`$ in the linear approximation.

In the generic case, the motion on a torus is ergodic. It is, however, not random and therefore, in order for the equation (11) to well describe transitions between the tori, one needs to consider an ensemble of tori in the vicinity of the chosen actions $`𝐈`$, as only for an ensemble of tori with different frequencies we can expect the angle variables to be uniformly distributed after a sufficiently long time $`t`$. Indeed, the spread of frequencies given by $`\delta 𝛀=\frac{𝛀}{𝐈}\delta 𝐈`$ translates into the spread of angle variables $`\delta 𝚯=\delta 𝛀t`$. The time for this spread in the angle variable to become comparable to $`2\pi `$ is

$$t_\theta \frac{2\pi }{\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{I}\right)\nu _I},$$
(12)
where $`\nu _I`$ is the characteristic width of the initial phase space density distribution $`\rho _0`$ along the action direction (to simplify writing, we have given Eq. (12) for the one-dimensional case). Thus, our theory based on Eq. (11) is valid for times $`t>t_\theta `$.

Since the final angle variables, after the forward and backward evolutions, depend on the actions of the perturbed system, we compute the distribution of the angle variables from the distribution of the perturbed actions as

$$P_𝐈(𝚯_{2t}𝚯_0;t)=W_𝐈\left(\frac{𝐈^{}𝐈}{ϵ}\right)\left|\frac{((𝐈^{}𝐈)/ϵ)}{(𝚯_{2t}𝚯_0)}\right|.$$
(13)
Using the expressions (9) and (10), we obtain

$$P_𝐈(𝚯_{2t}𝚯_0;t)=\frac{1}{(ϵt)^n}|\frac{𝛀}{𝐈}|^1\times $$

$$W_𝐈\left(\left[\frac{𝛀}{𝐈}\right]^1\left(\frac{𝚯_0𝚯_{2t}+𝒪(ϵ)}{ϵt}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }𝛀}{ϵ}\right)\right).$$
(14)
This expression is the kernel for the combined forward and backward evolution of the phase space densities.

We assume that the width $`\nu _I`$ along the action direction of the initial density $`\rho _0`$ is much larger than the change of the action variable induced by the perturbation, that is

$$\nu _Iϵ\underset{I,\mathrm{\Theta }}{\mathrm{max}}|g(I,\mathrm{\Theta })|$$
(15)
(to simplify writing we have given the condition (15) for the one-dimensional case). Therefore the effects of the forward and backward evolutions are felt mainly in the change of the angles variable. This means that the evolution from the initial phase space density $`\rho _0`$ to $`\rho _{2t}`$ is given, up to corrections of order $`ϵ`$, by

$$\rho _{2t}(𝐈,𝚯)=d^n𝚯^{}P_𝐈(𝚯^{}𝚯;t)\rho _0(𝐈,𝚯^{}).$$
(16)
The fidelity $`f(t)`$ can then be computed by inserting $`\rho _{2t}`$ into Eq.(4).

The kernel $`P_𝐈(𝚯^{}𝚯)`$ is stretched linearly in time, while at the same time it moves ballistically (linearly with time) with velocity $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝛀`$. Under the assumption that the perturbation of the shape of the tori is not divergent (as it is the case for most of the tori in a KAM regime), the distribution $`W_𝐈(𝐈/ϵ)`$ has a bounded support which is determined by the change of the shape of the tori due to the perturbation. We can see from Eq. (14) that at long times the argument of the function $`W_𝐈`$ is given by $`[𝛀/𝐈]^1(\mathrm{\Delta }𝛀/ϵ)`$. Therefore the long time behavior of $`P_𝐈`$ depends on whether the value of $`[𝛀/𝐈]^1(\mathrm{\Delta }𝛀/ϵ)`$ falls within the support of $`W_𝐈`$ or not. In the first case, $`\stackrel{~}{W}_𝐈W_𝐈([𝛀/𝐈]^1(\mathrm{\Delta }𝛀/ϵ))`$ is different from zero and therefore the kernel $`P_𝐈`$ drops $`1/t^n`$. In the latter case, $`\stackrel{~}{W}_𝐈=0`$, and therefore $`P_𝐈`$ drops ballistically. The transition between these two regimes is determined by the equality

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }𝐈_s}{ϵ}=\left[\frac{𝛀}{𝐈}\right]^1\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }𝛀}{ϵ},$$
(17)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝐈_s/ϵ`$ are the coordinates of the border of the support of $`W_𝐈`$.

We can therefore draw the following conclusions: If the perturbation of a classical integrable system is such that the primary effect is the change of the shape of the tori, then the expected decay of fidelity is $`1/t^n`$. On the contrary, if the change of the frequencies of the tori is the dominant effect, then we expect a ballistic decay of fidelity, that is the center of mass motion of the phase space densities after the forward and backward evolutions is responsible for a drastic drop of fidelity. Such a decay takes place as soon as the centers of mass of the densities $`\rho _{2t}`$ and $`\rho _0`$ are separated in the angle variables $`𝚯`$ by more than their characteristic width $`\nu _𝚯`$. As it can be seen from Eq. (4), the exact form of the fidelity drop in the ballistic regime depends on the tails of the initial distribution $`\rho _0`$: for instance, a Gaussian tail gives a Gaussian decay of fidelity, whereas a sharp border induces a sharp drop to zero of fidelity. Finally, it is important to stress that the type of decay, power law or ballistic, depends on initial conditions and on the shape of the perturbation. However, it does not depend on the strength of the perturbation, provided that it is sufficiently small. Indeed, Eq. (17) shows that $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝐈_s/ϵ`$ is $`ϵ`$-independent (to the first order in $`ϵ`$), since $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝛀ϵ`$.

## III Numerical demonstration

As a first example we consider the perturbed twist map, defined by

$`I_{t+1}`$ $`=`$ $`I_t+ϵ\mathrm{cos}(\alpha )\mathrm{sin}(\mathrm{\Theta }_t),`$ (18)
$`\mathrm{\Theta }_{t+1}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Theta }_t+I_{t+1}+ϵ\mathrm{sin}(\alpha )\mathrm{sin}(I_{t+1}),`$ (19)
where the angle $`\alpha `$ determines the mixture between purely perturbing the shape of the tori ($`\alpha =0`$) or purely changing their frequencies ($`\alpha =\pi /2`$). This parametrization allows us to change the type of the perturbation without changing its overall magnitude. The change of frequency associated with the perturbation is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }=ϵ\mathrm{sin}(\alpha )\mathrm{sin}(I).$$
(20)
The conserved action variable of the $`ϵ`$-perturbed system is, to the first order (in $`ϵ`$) approximation, given by

$$I^{}=I+ϵ\mathrm{cos}(\alpha )\frac{1}{2\mathrm{sin}(I/2)}\mathrm{cos}\left(\mathrm{\Theta }\frac{I}{2}\right).$$
(21)
Indeed, inserting this expression into the mapping (19), one can easily verify that $`I_{t+1}=I_t`$. The transition probability function $`W_I`$ for this system can thus be obtained by means of Eq. (11):

$$W_I\left(\mathrm{\Delta }I/ϵ\right)=$$

$$\frac{1}{2\pi }𝑑\mathrm{\Theta }\delta \left[\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }I}{ϵ}\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\alpha )}{2\mathrm{sin}(I/2)}\mathrm{cos}\left(\mathrm{\Theta }\frac{I}{2}\right)\right],$$
(22)
which gives

$$W_I\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }I}{ϵ}\right)=\frac{1}{\pi \sqrt{\left(\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\alpha )}{2\mathrm{sin}(I/2)}\right)^2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }I/ϵ\right)^2}}.$$
(23)
The range of the support of the distribution $`W_I`$ is between $`\pm \mathrm{cos}(\alpha )/(2\mathrm{sin}(I/2))`$. The critical value $`\alpha _c`$ for which $`\mathrm{\Delta }I_s/ϵ=(\mathrm{\Omega }/I)^1\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }/ϵ`$ is therefore determined by

$$\mathrm{tan}(\alpha _c)=\frac{1}{2\mathrm{sin}(I)\mathrm{sin}(I/2)}.$$
(24)
In Fig. 1 we show the numerically computed behavior of fidelity for this system as a function of time for various values of the parameter $`\alpha `$. We take as initial phase space density a rectangle centered around the point $`(\mathrm{\Theta }=\pi ,I=1)`$ with sides of length $`\nu _\mathrm{\Theta }=2\times 10^3,\nu _I=2\times 10^2`$. The perturbation strength is $`ϵ=10^6`$. To compute fidelity, we follow the evolution of $`N=10^4`$ trajectories, which at $`t=0`$ are uniformly distributed inside the above rectangle. The fidelity is then given by the percentage of trajectories that return back to this region after the forward and backward evolutions. In all cases we observe an initial plateau during which the fidelity does not decay appreciably. This plateau persists until the time $`t_p`$ at which the width of the kernel (14) or the shift of its center become comparable to the width $`\nu _\mathrm{\Theta }`$ of the phase space density along the angle variable. In either case this time is

$$t_p\frac{\nu _\mathrm{\Theta }}{ϵ}.$$
(25)
According to Eq. (17), we expect the behavior to change from algebraic decay to ballistic one at the value of the parameter $`\alpha =\alpha _c`$. For the chosen initial conditions, Eq. (24) gives $`\alpha _c0.892`$. Indeed, the change from an algebraic fidelity decay $`f(t)1/t`$ when $`\alpha <\alpha _c`$ to a sharp drop of fidelity when $`\alpha >\alpha _c`$ is clearly seen in Fig. 1.

An interesting feature is that, approaching the critical value $`\alpha _c`$, we observe that the fidelity decay, power law or ballistic, sets in after longer and longer times. This fact has a clear explanation: The value $`\stackrel{~}{W}_𝐈=W_I([𝛀/𝐈]^1(\mathrm{\Delta }𝛀/ϵ))`$, which determines the long time behavior of the evolution kernel (14), diverges close to the critical value $`\alpha =\alpha _c`$ (see Eq. (23)). When the fidelity decay is power law, we have $`P_𝐈=c/t^n`$, with the constant $`cW_𝐈`$. Since $`c`$ becomes larger and larger close to the critical point, the fidelity decay must be postponed to longer and longer times. On the other hand, when the long time fidelity decay is ballistic, we can see from Eq. (14) that the argument of the function $`W_𝐈`$ goes outside the support of $`W_𝐈`$ after a time that becomes longer close to the critical point. Only after this time the fidelity drops off. Of course the decay cannot be postponed indefinitely since the exact condition (24) can be satisfied only for a single torus, while we always deal with a family of tori upon which the initial phase space density $`\rho _0`$ rests.

We also checked numerically that, provided that the perturbation is much smaller than the characteristic widths $`\nu _I`$ of the initial density (that is, the requirement (15) is fulfilled), the type of behavior does not alter with changing the actual size of the perturbation $`ϵ`$, as it is expected from our theory. We simply rescale the time $`t_p1/ϵ`$ after which the fidelity decay starts, in agreement with Eq. (25).

To illustrate the fidelity decay in integrable systems with more than one degree of freedom, we consider the following system:

$$H(I_1,I_2,\mathrm{\Theta }_1,\mathrm{\Theta }_2)=H_0(I_1,I_2)+ϵV(I_1,I_2,\mathrm{\Theta }_1,\mathrm{\Theta }_2),$$
(26)
where the unperturbed Hamiltonian

$$H_0=\frac{\alpha _1}{2}I_1^2+\frac{\alpha _2}{2}I_2^2$$
(27)
describes the motion of a particle bouncing elastically inside a rectangular billiard and the perturbation is given by

$$V=\mathrm{cos}(\beta )\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Theta }_1)\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Theta }_2)+\mathrm{sin}(\beta )I_1I_2.$$
(28)
Again, depending on the value of the parameter $`\beta `$, the perturbation mainly affects either the shape of the tori or their frequencies. We use the first order perturbation theory of Hamiltonian systems (see, e.g., Ref. ) to determine the effects of the perturbation. What we need to find is a set of action-angle coordinates such that, to the first order in the perturbation strength $`ϵ`$, the Hamiltonian (26) in these new coordinates can be written as a function of only the new actions, namely

$$H(I_1,I_2,\mathrm{\Theta }_1,\mathrm{\Theta }_2)=H^{}(I_1^{},I_2^{})+𝒪(ϵ^2).$$
(29)
Introducing the generating function

$$G(I_1^{},I_2^{},\mathrm{\Theta }_1,\mathrm{\Theta }_2)=I_1^{}\mathrm{\Theta }_1+I_2^{}\mathrm{\Theta }_2$$

$$\frac{ϵ\mathrm{cos}\beta }{2}\left[\frac{\mathrm{sin}(\mathrm{\Theta }_1+\mathrm{\Theta }_2)}{\alpha _1I_1^{}+\alpha _2I_2^{}}+\frac{\mathrm{sin}(\mathrm{\Theta }_1\mathrm{\Theta }_2)}{\alpha _1I_1^{}\alpha _2I_2^{}}\right],$$
(30)
we get

$$I_1=\frac{G}{\theta _1}=I_1^{}\frac{ϵ\mathrm{cos}(\beta )}{2}[\frac{1}{\alpha _1I_1+\alpha _2I_2}\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Theta }_1+\mathrm{\Theta }_2)$$

$$+\frac{1}{\alpha _1I_1\alpha _2I_2}\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Theta }_1\mathrm{\Theta }_2)],$$
(31)
$$I_2=\frac{G}{\theta _2}=I_2^{}\frac{ϵ\mathrm{cos}(\beta )}{2}[\frac{1}{\alpha _1I_1+\alpha _2I_2}\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Theta }_1+\mathrm{\Theta }_2)$$

$$\frac{1}{\alpha _1I_1\alpha _2I_2}\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Theta }_1\mathrm{\Theta }_2)].$$
(32)
Substituting the above expressions into the Hamiltonian (26), we get

$$H^{}(I_1^{},I_2^{})=\frac{\alpha _1^2}{2}I_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+\frac{\alpha _2^2}{2}I_{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+ϵ\mathrm{sin}(\beta )I_1^{}I_2^{}.$$
(33)
The new frequencies are then given by

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_1^{}=\frac{H^{}}{I_1^{}}=\alpha _1I_1^{}+ϵ\mathrm{sin}(\beta )I_2^{},$$
(34)
$$\mathrm{\Omega }_2^{}=\frac{H^{}}{I_2^{}}=\alpha _2I_2^{}+ϵ\mathrm{sin}(\beta )I_1^{}.$$
(35)
Thus the frequencies changes read as follows:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_1=ϵ\mathrm{sin}(\beta )I_2,$$
(36)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_2=ϵ\mathrm{sin}(\beta )I_1.$$
(37)
As in the previous example, the above expressions allow us to find the transition probability function

$`W_𝐈(\mathrm{\Delta }I_1/ϵ,\mathrm{\Delta }I_2/ϵ)=`$ (38)
(39)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\left(\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\beta )}{\alpha _1I_1+\alpha _2I_2}\right)^2\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }I_1+\mathrm{\Delta }I_2}{ϵ}\right)^2}}}\times `$ (40)
(41)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\left(\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\beta )}{\alpha _1I_1\alpha _2I_2}\right)^2\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }I_1\mathrm{\Delta }I_2}{ϵ}\right)^2}}}.`$ (42)
It can be seen that the support for the distribution $`W_𝐈`$ is the rectangle

$$|U|<\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\beta )}{\alpha _1I_1+\alpha _2I_2},|V|<\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\beta )}{\alpha _1I_1\alpha _2I_2},$$
(43)
where $`U=(\mathrm{\Delta }I_1+\mathrm{\Delta }I_2)/ϵ`$ and $`V=(\mathrm{\Delta }I_1\mathrm{\Delta }I_2)/ϵ`$.

In Fig. 2 we show the decay of fidelity for this system for various values of $`\beta `$. The parameters of the system have been chosen as follows: $`\alpha _1=(\sqrt{5}+1)/2`$, $`\alpha _2=1`$. In all cases the initial phase space density is a hyper-rectangle centered around $`I_1=1`$, $`I_2=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Theta }_1=1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }_2=1`$ with all sides of length $`\nu _{I_1}=\nu _{I_1}=\nu _{\mathrm{\Theta }_1}=\nu _{\mathrm{\Theta }_2}=0.02`$. The perturbation parameter is $`ϵ=3\times 10^4`$ and the number of trajectories $`N=10^5`$. For the above initial conditions and parameters $`\alpha _1`$, $`\alpha _2`$, the critical value $`\beta _c`$ which separates the power law and the ballistic fidelity decay is determined by the equality (17) in the direction of the $`U`$ variable. Indeed, when $`\beta `$ increases, $`[𝛀/𝐈]^1(\mathrm{\Delta }𝛀/ϵ)`$ goes outside the support of $`W_𝐈`$ at first along this direction. This gives

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }𝐈_s}{ϵ}\right)_U=\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\beta _c)}{\alpha _1I_1+\alpha _2I_2}=\left[\left(\frac{𝛀}{𝐈}\right)^1\mathrm{\Delta }𝛀\right]_U,$$
(44)
where the right-hand side is the $`U`$-component of the vector

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{𝛀}{𝐈}}\right)^1\mathrm{\Delta }𝛀=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\alpha _2^1& 0\\ 0& \alpha _1^1\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{sin}(\beta _c)I_2\\ \mathrm{sin}(\beta _c)I_1\end{array}\right).`$ (49)
Therefore we get

$$\mathrm{tan}(\beta _c)=\frac{\alpha _1\alpha _2}{(\alpha _1I_1+\alpha _2I_2)^2}.$$
(50)
Substituting the chosen values of $`I_1,I_2,\alpha _1,`$ and $`\alpha _2`$, we find that the critical value is equal to $`\beta _c0.232`$. This theoretical expectation is confirmed by the numerical data of Fig. 2, which show a crossover from a power law fidelity decay (for $`\beta <\beta _c`$) to a ballistic decay (for $`\beta >\beta _c`$). The results are very similar to the case of the twist map, including the fact that, close to the critical value $`\beta =\beta _c`$, the decay is postponed to longer times. Is should be stressed that the algebraic fidelity decay, differently from the twist map case, is now inversely proportional to the square of the time, in agreement with our theoretical expectation for a two-dimensional system (see Eq. (14)).

As a last numerical example, we consider the kicked rotor map that is given by

$$I_{t+1}=I_t+K\mathrm{sin}(\mathrm{\Theta }_t),$$
(51)
$$\mathrm{\Theta }_{t+1}=\mathrm{\Theta }_t+I_{t+1}.$$
(52)
As it is known, for $`K1`$ the system is almost integrable, namely its phase space is dominated by invariant tori. There is a stable fixed point at $`(\mathrm{\Theta }=\pi ,I=0)`$ and a separatrix which divides the phase space into two regions: a section of librational motion around the stable fixed point inside the separatrix, and a section of rotational motion outside the separatrix. We perturb the system by varying $`KK^{}=K+ϵ`$. The important point is that the type of the perturbation chosen strongly affects the frequencies of the tori in the librational section, while it mainly perturbs the shape of the rotational tori. Therefore the same system and perturbation should lead to two completely different types of fidelity decays, power law or ballistic, depending on the choice of the initial conditions. Fig. 3 confirms this expectation: if the initial density $`\rho _0`$ is inside the separatrix the fidelity decay is ballistic, otherwise it is power law.

## IV Conclusions and outlook

In this work we have studied the decay of the fidelity of classical motion for integrable systems. Our main result is the following: for small enough perturbations, the type of the decay of fidelity for integrable systems depends not on the strength of the perturbation but on its shape and on initial conditions. More precisely, the fidelity exhibits two completely different behaviors, namely an algebraic decay if the perturbation mainly affects the shape of the tori, and a faster, ballistic decay, if the main effect of the perturbation is to change the frequencies of the tori. We have also given clear numerical demonstrations of the transition between the two types of behaviors, induced by changing the shape of the perturbation or the initial conditions.

This result poses interesting questions with respect to the quantum mechanical picture. Due to the correspondence principle, there should exist regimes where both types of decay may be observed. It is however expected that, for small perturbations, quantum mechanics would favor the ballistic type decay, as demonstrated in . Indeed the algebraic decay is due to the transitions between tori which, for small perturbations, are suppressed in quantum mechanics, due to tori quantization and subsequent gaps between them. The classical-quantum correspondence will be the topic of further studies.

This work was supported in part by the EC RTN contract HPRN-CT-2000-0156, the NSA and ARDA under ARO contract No. DAAD19-02-1-0086, the PA INFM “Weak chaos: Theory and applications”, and the PRIN 2002 “Fault tolerance, control and stability in quantum information precessing”.

## A Asymptotic behavior

The results of the previous Sections do not tackle the asymptotic decay of fidelity for integrable systems . Indeed, we neglected the contributions to the evolution kernel (14) that stem from the fact that the angle variables are cyclic. This means that, after a time which is $`2\pi /ϵ`$, we need to take into account the contributions to (14) not only at $`𝚯_{2t}𝚯_0`$ but also at all $`𝚯_{2t}𝚯_0+2\pi 𝐤`$, where $`𝐤`$ is a vector of integer numbers.

We limit ourselves to the case of a single torus. Of course the fidelity $`f(t)`$ is strictly zero for a single torus, and therefore it should be understood that we take the limits

$$ϵ0,\nu _𝐈0,\mathrm{with}\frac{ϵ}{\nu _𝐈}=\mathrm{constant}1.$$
(A1)
Let us consider the initial density $`\rho _0(𝚯)`$ to be defined on the whole $`𝚯`$ space (without $`2\pi `$ periodicity), while the kernel $`K_𝐈(𝚯;t)`$ is defined as the periodic function obtained from the original kernel:

$$K_𝐈(𝚯;t)=\underset{𝐤}{}P_𝐈(𝚯2\pi 𝐤;t)$$
(A2)
Assuming that the initial density is square normalized, the fidelity can be written as

$$f(t)=d^n𝚯\rho _0^{}(𝚯)\rho _{2t}(𝚯)=d^n𝚽\stackrel{~}{\rho }_0^{}(𝚽)\stackrel{~}{\rho }_{2t}(𝚽),$$
(A3)
where $`\stackrel{~}{}`$ denotes the Fourier transform:

$$\stackrel{~}{\rho }(𝚽)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}d^n𝚯\rho (𝚯)\mathrm{exp}(i𝚽𝚯).$$
(A4)
Since

$$\rho _{2t}(𝚯)=d^n𝚯^{}\rho _0(𝚯^{})K_𝐈(𝚯𝚯^{};t),$$
(A5)
in the Fourier picture this becomes

$$\stackrel{~}{\rho }_{2t}(𝚽)=\stackrel{~}{\rho }_0(𝚽)\stackrel{~}{K}_𝐈(𝚽;t).$$
(A6)
We may write the original kernel (14) in the simplified form

$$P_𝐈(𝚯;t)=1/t^np_𝐈(𝚯/t+𝚪),$$
(A7)
where $`p_𝐈(𝐲)=ϵ^nW_𝐈\left(\left[\frac{𝛀}{𝐈}\right]^1\frac{𝐲}{ϵ}\right)\left|\frac{𝛀}{𝐈}\right|^1`$ and $`𝚪=\mathrm{\Delta }𝛀`$. The Fourier transform of the kernel (A2) is therefore given by

$$\stackrel{~}{K}_𝐈(𝚽;t)=\underset{𝐤}{}\stackrel{~}{p}_𝐈(t𝚽)\mathrm{exp}(i𝚽(𝚪t2\pi 𝐤)).$$
(A8)
Then the formula

$$\underset{𝐤}{}\mathrm{exp}(i2\pi 𝚽𝐤)=\underset{𝐣}{}\delta (𝚽𝐣)$$
(A9)
leads to

$$\stackrel{~}{K}_𝐈(𝚽;t)=\underset{𝐣}{}\stackrel{~}{p}_𝐈(t𝐣)\mathrm{exp}(it𝚪𝐣)\delta (𝚽𝐣).$$
(A10)
This result, coupled with equations (A3) and (A6), finally leads to

$$f(t)=\underset{𝐣}{}|\stackrel{~}{\rho }_0(𝐣)|^2\stackrel{~}{p}_𝐈(t𝐣)\mathrm{exp}(it𝚪𝐣).$$
(A11)
As we can see, the behavior of fidelity in the limit $`t\mathrm{}`$ is given by the tails of the Fourier transform of the kernel $`p_𝐈`$. The origin of the kernel is the projection of the perturbed tori onto unperturbed ones, and we expect singularities in such a projection. These singularities induce a power law decay in the tails of the Fourier transform of the kernel and thus are responsible for the asymptotic power law decay of fidelity.

In the single degree of freedom situation, the typical singularity of projection to be encountered leads to $`p_I(y)|yy_0|^{1/2}`$, as it can also be seen in the twist map example (23). This type of singularity leads to the Fourier transform

$$\stackrel{~}{p}_I(\mathrm{\Phi })\mathrm{\Phi }^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}(i\mathrm{\Phi }y_0).$$
(A12)
Such an expression leads to following asymptotic fidelity decay:

$$f(t)f(\mathrm{})=$$

$$t^{1/2}\underset{j0}{}|\stackrel{~}{\rho }_0(j)|^2j^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}(ij(\mathrm{\Gamma }ty_0))=t^{1/2}z(\beta ),$$
(A13)
where $`\beta =\mathrm{\Gamma }t+y_0`$ and $`z`$ is some periodic function with period $`2\pi `$. We note that Eq. (A13) gives an overall $`t^{1/2}`$ fidelity decay together with a superimposed oscillatory behavior. This is the typical asymptotic relaxation of fidelity for a single torus in integrable systems with a single degree of freedom. If one considers a finite interval of actions $`\nu _I`$, the decay (A13) must be averaged over $`\nu _I`$, and therefore, due to the oscillatory nature of Eq. (A13), it can be faster that $`t^{1/2}`$. The extension to the many-dimensional case requires a complex analysis of the singularities encountered in the projection of the perturbed tori onto the unperturbed ones and is beyond the scope of the present paper.