John B. Delos - Professor of Physics
College of William and Mary
B.S. (Chemistry), University of Michigan, 1965
PhD (Physical Chemistry), Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
1970.
E-mail: jbdelo@wm.edu
Research Interests
Fundamental properties of simple atomic and molecular systems
are being investigated by examination of classical trajectories and
quantum wave-functions and eigenvalues. In classical mechanics,
two very different types of motion occur, which are called
"regular" and "irregular". For a system with N degrees of freedom,
the motion is regular if N conservation laws exist, and the motion
is irregular if there are fewer conservation laws.
This picture raises basic questions. Under what conditions
will orbits be orderly, and under what condition will they be
chaotic? If an orderly pattern exists, what are the associated
conservation laws? If there is no conservation law, what can be
learned about the behavior of the electron?
Now in fact electrons do not obey the laws of classical
mechanics; they actually obey the laws of quantum mechanics. In
what way does chaotic behavior carry over into quantum mechanics?
How does it manifest itself in the energy levels and
eigenfunctions?
In recent work, we have surveyed thousands of orbits of such
systems, determining regimes of regular and irregular behavior, and
analyzing the properties of regular motion when it exists. Current
work is focused on the transition to irregular behavior and the
properties of the chaotic regions.