Dynamical Tunnelling of Ultracold Atoms

Published

July 1, 2001

Author(s)

W K. Hensinger, H Heffner, A Browaeys, N R. Heckenberg, Kristian Helmerson, C R. McKenzie, G J. Milburn, William D. Phillips, S L. Rolston, H Rubinsztein-Dunlop, B Upcroft

Abstract

Nowhere does the divergence of the quantum and classical descriptions of particle motion become more apparent than in quantum tunneling between two regions of classically stable motion. An archetype of such nonclassical motion, studied since the earlies days of quantum mechanics, in tunneling through an energy barrier. In the 1980s a new kind of tunneling was predicted. Called dynamical tunneling, it involves no potential energy barrier, yet a constant of motion other than energy still classically forbids this quantum-allowed motion. This process should occur, e.g., in perodically driven, nonlinear, Hamiltonian systems with one degree of freedom. Such systems may be chaotic, and may contain phase space regions of stable, regular motion embedded in a sea of chaos. Previous studies predicted dynamical tunneling between such stable regions. Here we present the observation of dynamical tunneling of ultra-cold atoms, from a Bose-Einstein condensate, in an amplitude-modulated optical standing wave. Atoms coherently tunnel back and forth between their initial state of oscillatory motion (in an island of regular motion and the state oscillating 180 degrees out of phase with the initial state.

Citation

Nature

Volume

412

Issue

No. 6842

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

BEC, chaos, dynamical tunneling, tunneling

Citation

Hensinger, W. , Heffner, H. , Browaeys, A. , Heckenberg, N. , Helmerson, K. , McKenzie, C. , Milburn, G. , Phillips, W. , Rolston, S. , Rubinsztein-Dunlop, H. and Upcroft, B. (2001), Dynamical Tunnelling of Ultracold Atoms, Nature (Accessed October 11, 2025)