There was a seminar given by a cond-mat physicist from the university of St. Andrews. The topic was about the optical lattice for BEC. It was interesting in general, but for me, his approach to tackle this problem was particularly interesting. He used the semi-classical quantization technique, based on the chaotic dynamics. I know there is a textbook example of sepratrices using the Duffing model, a double-well potential. But this speaker extended to a periodic potential!
Motivated by this talk, I started to learn Quantum and Classical Chaos, which I did about 10 years ago when I just started my master course in Tokyo. Actually, my original plan was to obtain my PhD degree based on Quantum Chaos. Thanks to advice from one of the lecturers in nuclear physics group in Komaba, I switched my interest to nuclear structure physics (mainly, mean-field theory). I agree that his advice was correct because I was able to write a nice PhD paper on nuclear high -spin structure that ultimately earned me the present permanent position as a nuclear physicist here in Surrey. However, my burning enthusiasm to study something exciting and new (rather than relatively old and well-established fields such as nuclear theory) are not completely extinguished in my mind yet.... I know this is a bad sign to build a fast track record. But it is also true that I have more freedom now. at least, in comparison to Post-docs who are pressured to write just a number of papers... I know it is the best thing to do what one can first thought of in the begining of the carrer. To me, Chaos was the one.
I tried Gutzwiller 10 years ago, and read most of the chapters. But, frankly speaking, my understanding is not so deep, unfortunately. Remebering that I also bought Reichl, this time I decided to go for it first., although this book is somewhat contravertial (typographical errors and misunderstanding of some physical concepts....). But, at the same time, this is a good introductory book for beginners to browse what are discussed among contemporary physicists in the field of Chaos.
I am in the twist map now, and found this topic is more interesting than I previously thought. You know, I spent the full 10 years as a phenomenological physicist, so it is sometimes difficult to comprehend mathematical models without good physical pictures... The twist map was one such example... at least in the begining, but I started to gain my old feeling about how to enjoy mathematical physics. Of course, I can understand deeper now by comparing with/introducing what I know in/learned from nuclear structure physics.
