  We consider a driven damped anharmonic oscillator which classically leads to
a bistable steady state and to hysteresis. The quantum counterpart for this
system has an exact analytical solution in the steady state which does not
display any bistability or hysteresis. We use quantum state diffusion theory to
describe this system and to provide a new perspective on the lack of hysteresis
in the quantum regime so as to study in detail the quantum to classical
transition. The analysis is also relevant to measurements of a single
periodically driven electron in a Penning trap where hysteresis has been
observed.
