The interplay between chaotic tunneling and dynamical localization in mixed phase space is investigated. Semiclassical analysis using complex classical orbits reveals that tunneling through torus regions and transport in chaotic regions are not independent processes, rather they are strongly correlated and described by complex orbits with both properties. This predicts a phenomenon analogous to the quantum suppression of classical diffusion: chaotic tunneling is suppressed as a result of dynamical localization in chaotic regions. This hypothesis is confirmed by numerical experiments where the effect of destructive interference is attenuated.
The interplay between chaotic tunneling and dynamical localization in mixed phase space is investigated. Semiclassical analysis using complex classical orbits reveals that tunneling through torus regions and transport in chaotic regions are not independent processes, rather they are strongly correlated and described by complex orbits with both properties. This predicts a phenomenon analogous to the quantum suppression of classical diffusion: chaotic tunneling is suppressed as a result of dynamical localization in chaotic regions. This hypothesis is confirmed by numerical experiments where the effect of destructive interference is attenuated.
We develop the semiclassical method of complex trajectories in application to chaotic dynamical tunneling. First, we suggest a systematic numerical technique for obtaining complex tunneling trajectories by the gradual deformation of the classical ones. This provides a natural classification of the tunneling solutions. Second, we present a heuristic procedure for sorting out the least suppressed trajectory. As an illustration, we apply our technique to the process of chaotic tunneling in a quantum mechanical model with two degrees of freedom. Our analysis reveals rich dynamics of the system. At the classical level, there exists an infinite set of unstable solutions forming a fractal structure. This structure is inherited by the complex tunneling paths and plays a central role in the semiclassical study. The process we consider exhibits the phenomenon of optimal tunneling: the suppression exponent of the tunneling probability has a local minimum at a certain energy which is thus (locally) the optimal energy for tunneling. We test the proposed method by comparison of the semiclassical results with the results of the exact quantum computations and find a good agreement.
The interplay between classical chaos and quantum tunneling is examined in driven nonlinear systems, with emphasis on how semi classical phase space structures influence purely quantum transport phenomena. We show that, in the presence of external driving and stochastic perturbations, tunneling rates acquire an activated form determined by effective classical barriers, providing a transparent link between chaotic dynamics and quantum tunneling. Within this framework, chaos assisted tunneling and coherent destruction of tunneling emerge as closely related manifestations of the same underlying phase space restructuring and interference effects induced by driving. The results offer a unified perspective on tunneling control in non integrable systems and remain relevant for modern studies of driven quantum dynamics and decoherence resistant transport.
The study of quantum tunneling dates back to the early days of quantum mechanics, and has been a major topic of investigation in both theory and experiment. In recent years, there has been significant effort to understand tunneling phenomena for systems that exhibit chaos in their classical counterpart [13,15,18,29,42]. In particular, tunneling was predicted for mixed systems where chaotic and stable regions are intermingled [14]. The tunneling in this case is between two stable regions (referred to as nonlinear resonances, or islands of stability) in the classical phase space. The classical transport between these islands is forbidden by “dynamical barriers” in phase space. In contrast, quantum tunneling can couple the two islands so that a wave packet oscillates coherently between the two symmetry-related regions. This phenomenon is called dynamical tunneling because it occurs in phase space, without a fixed potential barrier. In the case of a mixed phase space, the presence of the chaotic region can enhance the rate of dynamical tunneling, a phenomenon known as chaos-assisted tunneling [53]. In this chapter, we review our experimental observation of chaosassisted tunneling with ultracold cesium atoms [48-51]. We first give a brief overview of some basic concepts and of earlier work in order to provide a context for our results.
In generic Hamiltonian systems that are neither completely integrable nor fully chaotic, phase space consists of a mixture of regular and chaotic components. In classical dynamics, transitions between different invariant sets in phase space are strictly forbidden, and these sets act as dynamical barriers to one another. In quantum mechanics, in contrast, wave effects allow transitions through such dynamical barriers. This process, known as dynamical tunneling, refers to penetration through dynamical barriers in phase space and was first recognized in the early 1980s. Since then, various aspects of dynamical tunneling have been elucidated, significantly advancing our understanding of such a novel quantum phenomenon. In this article, we provide an overview of several phenomenological perspectives of dynamical tunneling, including chaos-assisted and resonance-assisted tunneling, and also introduce approaches based on classical mechanics extended into the complex domain. In particular, we seek to clarify what is meant by the common claim that "chaos leads to an enhancement of the tunneling probability", which is often made when dynamical tunneling is dressed. We discuss what regime this refers to and, if such an enhancement occurs, what its likely origin is.
We investigate the effect of dephasing (decoherence) on quantum transport through open chaotic ballistic conductors in the semiclassical limit of small Fermi wavelength to system size ratio, ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{F}∕L⪡1$. We use the trajectory-based semiclassical theory to study a two-terminal chaotic dot with decoherence originating from (i) an external closed quantum chaotic environment, (ii) a classical source of noise, and (iii) a voltage probe, i.e., an additional current-conserving terminal. We focus on the pure dephasing regime, where the coupling to the external source of dephasing is so weak that it does not induce energy relaxation. In addition to the universal algebraic suppression of weak localization, we find an exponential suppression of weak localization $\ensuremath{\propto}\mathrm{exp}[\ensuremath{-}\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}∕{\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\ensuremath{\phi}}]$, with the dephasing rate ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\ensuremath{\phi}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$. The parameter $\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ depends strongly on the source of dephasing. For a voltage probe, $\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ is of order the Ehrenfest time $\ensuremath{\propto}\mathrm{ln}[L∕{\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{F}]$. In contrast, for a chaotic environment or a classical source of noise, it has the correlation length $\ensuremath{\xi}$ of the coupling or noise potential replacing the Fermi wavelength ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{F}$. We explicitly show that the Fano factor for shot noise is unaffected by decoherence. We connect these results to earlier works on dephasing due to electron-electron interactions and numerically confirm our findings.
New experimental results are presented for short-pulse microwave ionization of highly excited hydrogen atoms. A comparison of these results with quantum numerical computations and analytical predictions provides for the first time experimentally grounded evidence of the localization phenomenon that leads to the suppression of the quantum version of the chaotic diffusion in action space occurring in the classical limit. The onset of chaotic motion in externally driven classical systems is a key problem in nonlinear dynamics that is now well understood in its essential aspects. In many physically interesting cases, as the perturbation strength increases beyond some critical value, the system starts absorbing energy in a diffusive way. The question whether “diffusive” excitation processes can take place also in externally driven quantum systems is then a very interesting one for the physics of atoms and molecules in external electromagnetic fields. This is a deep question involving the nature and the validity of the quasiclassical approximation when the underlying classical dynamics is chaotic. The question of “quantum diffusion” was first addressed in a simple model system, the kicked rotator. It was chosen because the features of classical chaos in it were relatively clean and well understood. Besides that, the numerical simulation of its quantum dynamics could be easily accomplished. The major indication of this model was that quantum mechanics suppresses the classical chaotic diffusion in action via a destructive interference effect similar to that responsible for the Anderson localization well known in condensed matter physics.