Classical-quantum limits

Abstract: We introduce a new approach to analyzing the interaction between classical and quantum systems that is based on a limiting procedure applied to multi-particle Schr\"{o}dinger equations. The limit equations obtained by this procedure, which we refer to as the classical-quantum limit, govern the interaction between classical and quantum systems, and they possess many desirable properties that are inherited in the limit from the multi-particle quantum system. As an application, we use the classical-quantum limit equations to identify the source of the non-local signalling that is known to occur in the classical-quantum hybrid scheme of Hall and Reginatto. We also derive the first order correction to the classical-quantum limit equation to obtain a fully consistent first order approximation to the Schr\"{o}dinger equation that should be accurate for modeling the interaction between particles of disparate mass in the regime where the particles with the larger masses are effectively classical.