Nonhyperbolicity, as characterized by the coexistence of Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser (KAM) tori and chaos in the phase space, is generic in classical Hamiltonian systems. An open but fundamental question in physics concerns the relativistic quantum manifestations of nonhyperbolic dynamics. We choose the mushroom billiard that has been mathematically proven to be nonhyperbolic, and study the resonant tunneling dynamics of a massless Dirac fermion. We find that the tunneling rate as a function of the energy exhibits a striking ``clustering'' phenomenon, where the majority of the values of the rate concentrate on a narrow region, as a result of the chaos component in the classical phase space. Relatively few values of the tunneling rate, however, spread outside the clustering region due to the integrable component. Resonant tunneling of electrons in nonhyperbolic chaotic graphene systems exhibits a similar behavior. To understand these numerical results, we develop a theoretical framework by combining analytic solutions of the Dirac equation in certain integrable domains and physical intuitions gained from current understanding of the quantum manifestations of chaos. In particular, we employ a theoretical formalism based on the concept of self-energies to calculate the tunneling rate and analytically solve the Dirac equation in one dimension as well as in two dimensions for a circular-ring-type of tunneling systems exhibiting integrable dynamics in the classical limit. Because relatively few and distinct classical periodic orbits are present in the integrable component, the corresponding relativistic quantum states can have drastically different behaviors, leading to a wide spread in the values of the tunneling rate in the energy-rate plane. In contrast, the chaotic component has embedded within itself an infinite number of unstable periodic orbits, which provide far more quantum states for tunneling. Due to the nature of chaos, these states are characteristically similar, leading to clustering of the values of the tunneling rate in a narrow band. The appealing characteristic of our work is a demonstration and physical understanding of the ``mixed'' role played by chaos and regular dynamics in shaping relativistic quantum tunneling dynamics.
Nonhyperbolicity, as characterized by the coexistence of Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser (KAM) tori and chaos in the phase space, is generic in classical Hamiltonian systems. An open but fundamental question in physics concerns the relativistic quantum manifestations of nonhyperbolic dynamics. We choose the mushroom billiard that has been mathematically proven to be nonhyperbolic, and study the resonant tunneling dynamics of a massless Dirac fermion. We find that the tunneling rate as a function of the energy exhibits a striking clustering'' phenomenon, where the majority of the values of the rate concentrate on a narrow region, as a result of the chaos component in the classical phase space. Relatively few values of the tunneling rate, however, spread outside the clustering region due to the integrable component. Resonant tunneling of electrons in nonhyperbolic chaotic graphene systems exhibits a similar behavior. To understand these numerical results, we develop a theoretical framework by combining analytic solutions of the Dirac equation in certain integrable domains and physical intuitions gained from current understanding of the quantum manifestations of chaos. In particular, we employ a theoretical formalism based on the concept of self-energies to calculate the tunneling rate and analytically solve the Dirac equation in one dimension as well as in two dimensions for a circular-ring-type of tunneling systems exhibiting integrable dynamics in the classical limit. Because relatively few and distinct classical periodic orbits are present in the integrable component, the corresponding relativistic quantum states can have drastically different behaviors, leading to a wide spread in the values of the tunneling rate in the energy-rate plane. In contrast, the chaotic component has embedded within itself an infinite number of unstable periodic orbits, which provide far more quantum states for tunneling. Due to the nature of chaos, these states are characteristically similar, leading to clustering of the values of the tunneling rate in a narrow band. The appealing characteristic of our work is a demonstration and physical understanding of the mixed'' role played by chaos and regular dynamics in shaping relativistic quantum tunneling dynamics.
We solve the Dirac equation in two spatial dimensions in the setting of resonant tunneling, where the system consists of two symmetric cavities connected by a finite potential barrier. The shape of the cavities can be chosen to yield both regular and chaotic dynamics in the classical limit. We find that certain pointer states about classical periodic orbits can exist, which suppress quantum tunneling, and the effect becomes less severe as the underlying classical dynamics in the cavity is chaotic, leading to regularization of tunneling dynamics even in the relativistic quantum regime. Similar phenomena have been observed in graphene. A physical theory is developed to explain the phenomenon based on the spectrum of complex eigenenergies of the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian describing the effectively open cavity system.
Scarring in quantum systems with classical chaotic dynamics is one of the most remarkable phenomena in modern physics. Previous works were concerned mostly with nonrelativistic quantum systems described by the Schrödinger equation. The question remains outstanding of whether truly relativistic quantum particles that obey the Dirac equation can scar. A significant challenge is the lack of a general method for solving the Dirac equation in closed domains of arbitrary shape. In this paper, we develop a numerical framework for obtaining complete eigensolutions of massless fermions in general two-dimensional confining geometries. The key ingredients of our method are the proper handling of the boundary conditions and an efficient discretization scheme that casts the original equation in a matrix representation. The method is validated by (1) comparing the numerical solutions to analytic results for a geometrically simple confinement and (2) verifying that the calculated energy level-spacing statistics of integrable and chaotic geometries agree with the known results. Solutions of the Dirac equation in a number of representative chaotic geometries establish firmly the existence of scarring of Dirac fermions.
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.
Previous work in the field of relativistic quantum chaos has revealed initial evidence that the manifestations of classical chaos in relativistic quantum systems tend to be weakened as compared with those in nonrelativistic quantum systems. To place this finding on a firmer ground, we investigate the relativistic quantum fingerprints of classical chaos using the out-of-time-order correlator (OTOC). OTOC has recently been applied to a number of fields in physics and it holds special promises for the field of quantum chaos, but existing work focused exclusively on nonrelativistic quantum systems. Calculating and analyzing OTOC for relativistic quantum billiard systems described by the massless Dirac equation, we find that the signatures of classical chaos are indeed characteristically less pronounced in relativistic than in nonrelativistic quantum systems. The finding is substantiated by studying four different aspects of OTOC. Firstly, in the energy eigenspace, in the short time regime there is a complete lack of any signature of chaos associated with the evolution of OTOC in the Dirac billiard due to the relativistic quantum phenomenon of Zitterbewegung, in contrast to nonrelativistic quantum billiard systems where chaos leaves behind a quite distinct signature. Secondly, weakening of the relativistic quantum manifestations of classical chaos occurs in the long time regime as well. Thirdly, evolution of the wave packet based OTOC also reveals that the fingerprints of chaos are much less pronounced in the Dirac billiard systems as compared with the Schrödinger billiards. Fourthly, the level spacing statistics of the OTOC operators in systems with classically integrable and chaotic dynamics, which are characteristically distinct in the Schrödinger billiards, bear a strong similarity in the Dirac billiards, indicating again the dwindling effects of chaos. The OTOC based results suggest that the impacts of classical chaos are generally weaker in relativistic than in nonrelativistic quantum systems, a fundamental issue that warrants further investigation.
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.
Abstract Thirty-five years ago, Sir Michael Berry and his collaborator Mondragon studied the behaviors of neutrino, a massless relativistic quantum particle, in a classically chaotic billiard—the neutrino billiard problem. To celebrate Sir Michael Berry’s eightieth birthday, here we report results on the role of geometric symmetries of the billiard system in relativistic quantum scarring. In particular, we investigate a Dirac billiard system with a four-fold rotational symmetry whose classical dynamics are fully chaotic. The system is described by the massless Dirac equation in the fundamental domain that consists of one fourth of the full billiard, with proper boundary conditions on the symmetry lines to preserve the physical properties under the symmetry operations. We show that the relativistic quantum characteristics of spin induced phase play a fundamental role in the quantum behaviors of the Dirac particle in the billiard. We find that the peaks in the length spectra are due to the interference of states circling the fundamental domain orbits (FDOs) in opposite propagating directions, which can be constructive or destructive depending on the accumulated phases. In addition, we derive the quantization conditions of the scarring states about the unstable periodic orbits within the fundamental domain from the phase along the FDOs. Our work is a vivid demonstration that relativistic quantum scarring, or more generally quantum manifestations of classical chaos, can be fully understood by analyzing the behaviors of the geometric phase—a powerful approach in modern physics pioneered by Sir Michael Berry.