The classical skeleton of open quantum chaotic maps

We have studied two complementary decoherence measures, purity and fidelity, for a generic diffusive noise in two different chaotic systems (the baker map and the cat map). For both quantities, we have found classical structures in quantum mechanics–the scar functions–that are specially stable when subjected to environmental perturbations. We show that these quantum states constructed on classical invariants are the most robust significant quantum distributions in generic dissipative maps.

► We present a study of two decoherence measures, purity and fidelity, for a generic diffusive noise in two different chaotic maps. ► We have found that the scar functions are specially stable when subjected to environmental perturbations. ► We show that scar functions represent the stable classical skeleton of the map eigenstates against environmental perturbations.