Dynamics of Coupled Quantum--Classical Oscillators

The dynamics of systems consisting of coupled quantum--classical oscillators is numerically investigated. It is shown that, under certain conditions, the quantum oscillator exhibits chaos. When the mass of the classical oscillator increases, the chaos will be suppressed; if the energy of the system and/or the coupling strength between the two oscillators increases, chaotic behaviour of the system appears. This result will be helpful to understand the probability of the emergence of quantum chaos and may be applied to explain the spectra of complex atoms qualitatively.