Roman Schubert

Wave packets in Quantum Chaos and Decoherence

Wave packets are a particular class of solutions to the Schrodinger equation in quantum mechanics. Following the time evolution of a wave packet one can learn about the properties of the system, e.g., if the classical system is chaotic or integrable. And if one knows enough about the propagation of wave packets and can deduce properties of other time dependent wave function. So wave packets are a very useful tool in many areas of quantum mechanics and applications. I will give a gentle introduction to wave packets and some of their history and then describe some of their applications in my own work in the areas of quantum chaos and open quantum systems.