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arXiv:quant-ph/0105140 · Physical Review A

Theory of nonlinear Landau-Zener tunneling

Jie Liu, Libin Fu, Bi-Yiao Ou, Shi-Gang Chen, Dae-Il Choi, Biao Wu, Qian Niu

Published Aug 5, 2002• 282 citations
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Abstract

We present a comprehensive analysis of the nonlinear Landau-Zener tunneling. We find characteristic scaling or power laws for the critical behavior that occurs as the nonlinear parameter equals to the gap of avoided crossing energy levels. For the nonlinear parameter larger than the energy gap, a closed-form solution is derived for the nonlinear tunneling probability, which is shown to be a good approximation to the exact solution for a wide range of the parameters. Finally, we discuss the experimental realization of the nonlinear model and possible observation of the scaling or power laws using a Bose-Einstein condensate in an accelerating optical lattice.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.66.023404

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We present a comprehensive analysis of the nonlinear Landau-Zener tunneling. We find characteristic scaling or power laws for the critical behavior that occurs as the nonlinear parameter equals to the gap of avoided crossing energy levels. For the nonlinear parameter larger than the energy gap, a closed-form solution is derived for the nonlinear tunneling probability, which is shown to be a good approximation to the exact solution for a wide range of the parameters. Finally, we discuss the experimental realization of the nonlinear model and possible observation of the scaling or power laws using a Bose-Einstein condensate in an accelerating optical lattice.
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Nonlinear Landau-Zener tunneling is an important nonlinear phenomenon. We propose to stimulate the nonlinear tunneling in a spin-orbit-coupled spinor Bose-Einstein condensate. The system provides an experimentally tunable nonlinearity as well as multiple avoided crossings with tunable gap size in nonlinear dispersion relations. The nonlinearity generates tilted cusp and loop structures around the avoided crossings, and the physical consequence of these nonlinear structures is the nonlinear Landau-Zener tunneling. The spin-momentum locking induced by the spin-orbit coupling leads to a time-resolved observation of the nonlinear tunneling by measuring atom populations.
We develop a general theory of Landau-Zener (LZ) tunneling in a two-level system with amplitude-dependent, sign-reversible nonlinear coupling, distinguishing it fundamentally from conventional on-site nonlinearity. Through a combination of analytical and phase-space analysis, we show that beyond a critical interaction strength, the nonlinear coupling fundamentally reshapes the adiabatic energy landscape, introducing a topological twisted and knotted structure. This structure leads to a complete breakdown of the standard exponential LZ formula, even in the adiabatic limit. Central to this anomalous behavior is the emergence of a black-hole-like fixed point, which acts as a universal attractor: upon traversing the critical region, all quantum trajectories converge to this fixed point, irreversibly erasing any memory of the initial state. From this fixed-point picture, we derive an exact analytical expression for the adiabatic tunneling probability, revealing a characteristic power-law dependence on both linear and nonlinear coupling strength. Our work establishes a paradigmatic framework for nonlinear-coupling-induced anomalous adiabaticity breaking and offers a universal mechanism for state control in driven quantum and wave systems.
From a two-level model for nonlinear Landau-Zener tunnelling between two energy bands of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a periodic potential we obtain unequal tunnelling rates for the two directions of tunnelling. With increasing nonlinearity, tunnelling from the ground state to the excited state is enhanced, whereas in the opposite direction it is suppressed. These findings are confirmed by numerical simulations of the condensate dynamics. Measuring the tunnelling rates for a condensate of rubidium atoms in an optical lattice, we have found experimental evidence for this asymmetry. We discuss the limitations of our approach and possible future experiments.
We study tunneling of a Bose-Einstein condensates confined in a effective double-well potential (a single well with a spatially magnetic modulated scattering length, actually), called pseudo double-well trap, in which the interaction of atoms characterized by the s-wave scattering length a s can be widely tuned with a magnetic-field Feshbach resonance. As a result, corresponding to different nonlinear parameters, the energy levels of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation can have complex structures in their dependence on the bias between the wells. We discuss the emergence of looped levels, which lead to a breakdown of adiabaticity that the Landau-Zener transition probability does not vanish even in the adiabatic limit. Moreover, we also find that the Landau-Zener tunneling in the pseudo trap show many striking properties distinguished from that of the real trap model (where the barrier is created by the external potential). Possible experimental observation in an opticallyinduced photonic lattices in a photorefractive material is suggested.