On the Classical Schrödinger Equation

Abstract

In this paper, the classical Schrödinger equation (CSE), which allows the study of classical dynamics in terms of wave functions, is analyzed theoretically and numerically. First, departing from classical (Newtonian) mechanics, and assuming an additional single-valued condition for the Hamilton’s principal function, the CSE is obtained. This additional assumption implies inherent non-classical features on the description of the dynamics obtained from the CSE: the trajectories do not cross in the configuration space. Second, departing from Bohmian mechanics and invoking the quantum-to-classical transition, the CSE is obtained in a natural way for the center of mass of a quantum system with a large number of identical particles. This quantum development imposes the condition of dealing with a narrow wave packet, which implicitly avoids the non-classical features mentioned above. We illustrate all the above points with numerical simulations of the classical and quantum Schrödinger equations for different systems.