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arXiv:quant-ph/0005016 · Physical Review A

Control of tunneling by adapted signals

Boris I. Ivlev

Published Nov 1, 2000• 13 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The process of quantum tunneling of particles in various physical systems can be effectively controlled even by a weak and slow varying in time electromagnetic signal, especially if to adapt its shape to a particular system. During an under-barrier motion of a particle, such a signal provides a ``coherent'' assistance of tunneling by the multiquanta absorption resulting in a strong enhancement of the tunneling probability. The semiclassical approach based on trajectories in the complex time is developed for tunneling in a nonstationary field. Enhancement of tunneling occurs when a singularity of the signal coincides in position at the complex time plane with a singularity of the classical Newtonian trajectory of the particle. The developed theory is also applicable to the over-barrier reflection of particles and to reflection of classical waves (electromagnetic, hydrodynamic, etc.) from a spatially-smooth medium.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.62.062102

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The process of quantum tunneling of particles in various physical systems can be effectively controlled even by a weak and slow varying in time electromagnetic signal, especially if to adapt its shape to a particular system. During an under-barrier motion of a particle, such a signal provides a ``coherent'' assistance of tunneling by the multiquanta absorption resulting in a strong enhancement of the tunneling probability. The semiclassical approach based on trajectories in the complex time is developed for tunneling in a nonstationary field. Enhancement of tunneling occurs when a singularity of the signal coincides in position at the complex time plane with a singularity of the classical Newtonian trajectory of the particle. The developed theory is also applicable to the over-barrier reflection of particles and to reflection of classical waves (electromagnetic, hydrodynamic, etc.) from a spatially-smooth medium.
Quantum tunneling through a nonstationary barrier is studied analytically and by a direct numerical solution of Schr\"odinger equation. Both methods are in agreement and say that the main features of the phenomenon can be described in terms of classical trajectories which are solutions of Newton's equation in complex time. The probability of tunneling is governed by analytical properties of a time-dependent perturbation and the classical trajectory in the plane of complex time. Some preliminary numerical calculations of Euclidean resonance (an easy penetration through a classical nonstationary barrier due to an underbarrier interference) are presented.
The extremely small probability of tunneling through an almost classical potential barrier may become not small under the action of the specially adapted nonstationary signal which selects the certain particle energy ER.{E}_{R}.ER​. For particle energies close to this value, the tunneling rate is not small during a finite interval of time and has a very sharp peak at the energy ER.{E}_{R}.ER​. After entering inside the barrier, the particle emits electromagnetic quanta and exits the barrier with a lower energy. The signal amplitude can be much less compared to the field of the static barrier. This phenomenon can be called the Euclidean resonance since the under-barrier motion occurs in imaginary time. The resonance may stimulate chemical and biochemical reactions in a selective way by adapting the signal to a certain particular chemical bond. The resonance may be used in search of the soft-\ensuremath{\alpha}-particle decay for which a conventional observation is impossible due to an extremely small decay rate.
The problem of inter-band tunneling in a semiconductor (Zener breakdown) in a nonstationary and homogeneous electric field is solved exactly. Using the exact analytical solution, the approximation based on classical trajectories is studied. A new mechanism of enhanced tunneling through static non-one-dimensional barriers is proposed in addition to well known normal tunneling solely described by a trajectory in imaginary time. Under certain conditions on the barrier shape and the particle energy, the probability of enhanced tunneling is not exponentially small even for non-transparent barriers, in contrast to the case of normal tunneling.
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.
A Brief History of Quantum Tunneling Some Basic Questions Concerning Quantum Tunneling Simple Solvable Problems Time-Dependence of the Wave Function in One-Dimensional Tunneling Semiclassical Approximations Generalization of the Bohr - Sommerfeld Quantization Rule and its Application to Quantum Tunneling Gamow's Theory, Complex Eigenvalues, and the Wave Function of a Decaying State Tunneling in Symmetric and Asymmetric Local Potentials and Tunneling in Nonlocal and Quasi-Solvable Barriers Classical Descriptions of Tunneling Tunneling in Time-Dependent Barriers Decay Width and Scattering Theory The Method of Variable Reflection Amplitude Applied to Solve Multichannel Tunneling Problems Path Integral and Its Semi-Classical Approximation in Quantum Tunneling Heisenberg's Equations of Motion for Tunneling Wigner Distribution Function in Quantum Tunneling Decay Widths of Siegert States, Complex Scaling and Dilatation Transformation Multidimensional Quantum Tunneling Group and Signal Velocities Time-Delay, Reflection Time Operator and Minimum Tunneling Time More about Tunneling Time Tunneling of a System with Internal Degrees of Freedom Motion of a Particle in a Waveguide with Variable Cross Section and in a Space Bounded by a Dumbbell-Shaped Object Relativistic Formulation of Quantum Tunneling Inverse Problems of Quantum Tunneling Some Examples of Quantum Tunneling in Atomic and Molecular Physics Some Examples from Condensed Matter Physics Alpha Decay.
In recent papers we demonstrated a new class of barrier tunneling phenomena which can be observed in periodically driven one dimensional barrier systems (i.e., 1.5D barrier tunneling systems). In such systems the tunneling component is in general accompanied by remarkable interference fringe patterns as the perturbation strength exceeds a certain characteristic value. Such a phenomenon is quite general and is not restricted to periodically driven 1D systems, and it may be also observed in intrinsic two dimensional autonomous systems. The complex-domain semiclassical theory developed by ourselves was applied to the problem, and we succeeded in reconstructing every detail of the fringed tunneling wavefunction only by using the complexified classical tunneling trajectories. This fact greatly motivates us to investigate the mechanism of the tunneling in terms of “classical mechanics”. The later part of the present paper is devoted to asserting the generality of the “classical mechanism” of the fringed tunneling. We develop detailed semiclassical analyses in the complex domain and demonstrate that the key trajectories contributing to the fringed tunneling are quite different from the instanton-like trajectories, which works only in unperturbed or weakly-perturbed regimes. Indeed, such trajectories are traveling in the complex phase space being guided by the complexified stable and unstable manifolds which exhibit heteroclinic-like entanglement with the incoming wave manifolds.