Chaos-Assisted Tunneling

Abstract

The ability of particles to “tunnel” through potential energy barriers is a purely quantum phenomenon. A classical particle in a symmetric double-well potential, with energy below the potential barrier, will be trapped on one side of the potential well. A quantum particle, however, can sit on both sides, in either a symmetric state or an antisymmetric state. An analogous phenomenon occurs in conservative classical systems with two degrees of freedom and no potential barriers. If only the energy is conserved, the phase space will be a mixture of regular “islands” embedded in a sea of chaos. Classically, a particle sitting in one regular island cannot reach another symmetrically located regular island when the islands are separated by chaos. However, a quantum particle can sit on both regular islands, in symmetric and antisymmetric states, due to chaos-assisted tunneling. Here, we give an overview of the theory and recent experimental observations of this phenomenon.