Quantum Scrambling in Molecules
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In quantum systems, out of time order correlators (OTOCs) can be used to probe the sensitivity of the dynamics to perturbing the Hamiltonian or changing the initial conditions ordinarily associated with classical chaos or its quantum analog. The vibrations of polyatomic molecules are known to undergo a transition from regular dynamics at low energy to facile energy flow at sufficiently high energy. Molecules therefore represent ideal quantum systems to study the transition to chaos in many-body systems of moderate size (here 6 to 36 degrees of freedom). By computing quantum OTOCs and their classical counterparts we quantify how information becomes ‘scrambled’ quantum mechanically in molecular systems.