The time divergence of classical nonlinear response functions reveals the fundamental difficulty of dynamic perturbation based on classical mechanics. The nature of the divergence is established for systems in regular motions using asymptotic decomposition of Fourier integrals. The asymptotic analysis shows that the divergence cannot be removed by phase-space averaging such as the Boltzmann distribution function. The implications of this study are discussed in the context of the conceptual development of quantum-classical correspondence in dynamic response.

• Received 4 October 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.030403