Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.
Observation of Chaos-Assisted Tunneling Between Islands of Stability
Daniel A. Steck,Windell H. Oskay,Mark G. Raizen*
We report the direct observation of quantum dynamical tunneling of
atoms between separated momentum regions in phase space.We study how
the tunneling oscillations are affected as a quantumsymmetry is broken
and as the initial atomic state is changed.We also provide evidence
that the tunneling rate is greatly enhancedby the presence of chaos in
the classical dynamics. This tunnelingphenomenon represents a dramatic
manifestation of underlying classicalchaos in a quantum system.
Department of Physics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin,
TX 78712-1081, USA.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
raizen{at}physics.utexas.edu
