  We investigate the dynamics of classical and quantum N-component phi^4
oscillators in the presence of an external field. In the large N limit the
effective dynamics is described by two-degree-of-freedom classical Hamiltonian
systems. In the classical model we observe chaotic orbits for any value of the
external field, while in the quantum case chaos is strongly suppressed. A
simple explanation of this behaviour is found in the change in the structure of
the orbits induced by quantum corrections. Consistently with Heisenberg's
principle, quantum fluctuations are forced away from zero, removing in the
effective quantum dynamics a hyperbolic fixed point that is a major source of
chaos in the classical model.
