This work proposes a series of quantum experiments that can, at least in principle, allow for examining microscopic mechanisms associated with decoherence. These experiments can be interpreted as a quantum-mechanical version of non-equilibrium mixing between two volumes separated by a thin interface. One of the principal goals of such experiments is in identifying non-equilibrium conditions when time-symmetric laws give way to time-directional, irreversible processes, which are represented by decoherence at the quantum level. The rate of decoherence is suggested to be examined indirectly, with minimal intrusions -- this can be achieved by measuring tunnelling rates that, in turn, are affected by decoherence. Decoherence is understood here as a general process that does not involve any significant exchanges of energy and governed by a particular class of the Kraus operators. The present work analyses different regimes of tunnelling in the presence of decoherence and obtains formulae that link the corresponding rates of tunnelling and decoherence under different conditions. It is shown that the effects on tunnelling of intrinsic decoherence and of decoherence due to unitary interactions with the environment are similar but not the same and can be distinguished in experiments.
We use a spin-1/2 model to analyze tunnelling in a double well system coupled to an external reservoir. We consider different noise sources such as fluctuations on the height and central position of the barrier and propose an experiment to observe these effects in trapped ions or atoms.
We study the dynamics of a charge qubit, consisting of a single electron in a double well potential coupled to a point-contact (PC) electrometer, using the quantum trajectories formalism. Contrary to previous predictions, we show formally that, in the sub-Zeno limit, coherent oscillations in the detector output are suppressed, and the dynamics is dominated by inelastic processes in the PC. Furthermore, these reduce the detector efficiency and induce relaxation even when the source-drain bias is zero. This is of practical significance since it means the detector will act as a source of decohere…
We analyse tunnelling of a single particle, whose initial state is given by a superposition of spatially separated wave packet modes. It is shown that "pile up" of different components the scatterer may change the tunnelling probabilities, making such states a convenient tool for probing the barrier's scattering times. Interference effects arising in resonance tunnelling in are studied in detail. The analysis allows us to gain further insight into the origin of interference effects in scattering of several identical particles.
Apparently 'superluminal' transmission, e.g., in quantum tunnelling and its variants, occurs via a subtle interference mechanism which allows reconstruction of the entire spacial shape of a wave packet from its front tail. It is unlikely that the effect could be described adequately in simpler terms.
In this paper we develop and refine our recent model of a one-dimensional completed scattering, which gives an individual description of the transmission and reflection subprocesses at all stages of scattering. We show that the group, dwell and Larmor characteristic times, introduced in this model for the subprocesses, are in a full agreement with special relativity and allow us to solve the Hartman effect puzzle.
The probability of simultaneous tunnelling of two particles is modified when the system is in a non-separable state, either entangled or symmetrised. We compare both effects in the rectangular potential barrier by evaluating the transmission rates in superposition states. For large momenta, their simultaneous presence greatly changes the form of the transmission rates. The joint effects are much larger than the superposition ones. Moreover, there are significant differences between bosons and fermions. We present an unified view of the combined effects as a quantum interference phenomenon. The…
We report the existence of a sizeable quantum tunnelling splitting between the two lowest electronic spin levels of mononuclear Ni complexes. The level anti-crossing, or magnetic clock transition, associated with this gap has been directly monitored by heat capacity experiments. The comparison of these results with those obtained for a Co derivative, for which tunnelling is forbidden by symmetry, shows that the clock transition leads to an effective suppression of intermolecular spin-spin interactions. In addition, we show that the quantum tunnelling splitting admits a chemical tuning via the …
Despite compelling evidence to the contrary in recent years, the view still persists that quantum effects cannot survive very long within a warm, noisy and complex environment that washes out quantum effects at timescales far too short for any chemically or biochemically interesting processes. It is also assumed that as the temperature of the surrounding environment increases, so the efficiency of processes such as quantum tunnelling drops. One way of viewing this has been to invoke the quantum Zeno effect: that the watched pot never boils. In this work we show that the opposite is true. For a…
We show that a short-range strong repulsive (contact) interaction between the particles in the barrier may change the statistics of two-particle tunnelling. In the case of a resonance of a width $Γ$, the effect would be observed if the time between the two impacts is of order of $\hbar/Γ$. The statistics of non-resonance tunnelling across a broad potential barrier remain unaffected, which suggests that there is no appreciable delay in the classically forbidden region.
We introduce a model for a two configurations system, and we study the transition from quantum to classical behaviour. We first consider the effect of the interaction with the environment as an external noise and we show that it produces decoherence and suppression of tunnelling. These features are widely accepted as definition of classicality, while we believe that classicality implies that quantum delocalized states spontaneously evolve into localized ones. We than show that this evolution take place only when both noise and non linearity in the equations are present.
Quantum tunnelling is a common fundamental quantum-mechanical phenomenon that originates from the wave-like characteristics of quantum particles. Although the quantum-tunnelling effect was first observed 85 years ago, some questions regarding the dynamics of quantum tunnelling remain unresolved. Here, we realise a quantum-tunnelling system using two-dimensional ionic structures in a linear Paul trap. We demonstrate that the charged particles in this quantum-tunnelling system are coupled to the vector potential of a magnetic field throughout the entire process, even during quantum tunnelling, a…
It is shown that the Hartman-Fletcher effect is valid for all the known expressions of the mean tunnelling time, in various nonrelativistic approaches, for the case of finite width barriers without absorption. Then, we show that the same effect is not valid for the tunnelling time mean-square fluctuations. On the basis of the Hartman-Fletcher effect and the known analogy between photon and nonrelativistic-particle tunnelling, one can explain the Superluminal group-velocities observed in various photon tunnelling experiments (without violation of the so-called "Einstein causality").
The study of the quantum to classical transition is of fundamental as well as technological importance, and focusses on mesoscopic devices, with a size for which either classical physics or quantum physics can be brought to dominate. A particularly diverse selection of such devices is available in cavity quantum-optomechanics. We show that these can be leveraged for the study of dynamical-tunnelling in a quantum chaotic system. This effect probes the quantum to classical transition deeply, since tunnelling rates sensitively depend on the ability of the quantum system to resolve the underlying …
We employ the theoretical framework of positive operator valued measures, to study Markovian open quantum systems. In particular, we discuss how a quantum system influences its environment. Using the theory of indirect measurements, we then draw conclusions about the information we could hypothetically obtain about the system by observing the environment. Although the environment is not actually observed, we can use these results to describe the change of the quantum system due to its interaction with the environment. We apply this technique to two different problems. In the first part, we stu…
It is well-known that increasing the nonlinearity due to repulsive atomic interactions in a double-well Bose-Einstein condensate suppresses quantum tunnelling between the two sites. Here we find analogous behaviour in the dynamical tunnelling of a Bose-Einstein condensate between period-one resonances in a single driven potential well. For small nonlinearities we find unhindered tunnelling between the resonances, but with an increasing period as compared to the non-interacting system. For nonlinearities above a critical value we generally observe that the tunnelling shuts down. However, for ce…
In a recent review paper [{\em Phys. Reports} {\bf 214} (1992) 339] we proposed, within conventional quantum mechanics, new definitions for the sub-barrier tunnelling and reflection times. \ Aims of the present paper are: \ (i) presenting and analysing the results of various numerical calculations (based on our equations) on the penetration and return times $<τ_{\, \rm Pen}>$, $<τ_{\, \rm Ret}>$, during tunnelling {\em inside} a rectangular potential barrier, for various penetration depths $x_{\rm f}$; \ (ii) putting forth and discussing suitable definitions, besides of the mean values, also o…
In this review we deal with open (dissipative and stochastic) quantum systems within the Bohmian mechanics framework which has the advantage to provide a clear picture of quantum phenomena in terms of trajectories, originally in configuration space. The gradual decoherence process is studied from linear and nonlinear Schrödinger equations through Bohmian trajectories as well as by using the so-called quantum-classical transition differential equation through scaled trajectories. This transition is governed by a continuous parameter, the transition parameter, covering these two extreme open dyn…
We show that the interaction (cross-collision) between atoms trapped in distinct sites of a double-well potential can significantly increase the atom tunneling rate for special trap configurations leading to an effective linear Rabi regime of population oscillation between the trap wells. The inclusion of cross-collisional effects significantly extends the validity of the two-mode model approach allowing it to be alternatively employed to explain the recently observed increase of tunneling rates due to nonlinear interactions.
The effects caused by phonon-assisted tunnelling (PhAT) in a double quantum dot (QD) molecule immersed in a cavity were studied under the quantum Markovian master equation formalism in order to account for dissipation phenomena. We explain how for higher PhAT rates, a stronger interaction between a QD and the cavity at off-resonance takes place through the resonant interaction of another QD and the cavity, where the QDs interact through tunnelling. A closer look at the system's allowed optical transitions as a function of PhAT rates showed coalescence of the transition energies, leading to a l…
Efficient quantum-state transfer is achieved in a uniformly coupled spin-1/2 chain, with open boundaries, by application of local magnetic fields on the second and last-but-one spins, respectively. These effective \textit{barriers} induce appearance of two eigenstates, bi-localized at the edges of the chain, which allow a high quality transfer also at relatively long distances. The same mechanism may be used to send an entire e-bit (e.g., an entangled qubit pair) from one to the other end of the chain.
We present a method to numerically compute accurate tunnelling rates for a Bose-Einstein condensate which is described by the nonlinear Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Our method is based on a sophisticated real-time integration of the complex-scaled Gross-Pitaevskii equation, and it is capable of finding the stationary eigenvalues for the Wannier-Stark problem. We show that even weak nonlinearities have significant effects in the vicinity of very sensitive resonant tunnelling peaks, which occur in the rates as a function of the Stark field amplitude. The mean-field interaction induces a broadening…
We study through controlled numerical simulation the ground state properties of spin-polarized strongly interacting fermi gas in an anisotropic optical lattice, which is described by an effective one-dimensional general Hubbard model with particle correlated hopping rate. We show that the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) type of state, while enhanced by a negative correlated hopping rate, can be completely suppressed by positive particle correlated hopping, yielding to an unusual magnetic phase even for particles with on-site attractive interaction We also find several different phase s…
Atomic-scale understanding of phosphorous donor wave functions underpins the design and optimisation of silicon based quantum devices. The accuracy of large-scale theoretical methods to compute donor wave functions is dependent on descriptions of central-cell-corrections, which are empirically fitted to match experimental binding energies, or other quantities associated with the global properties of the wave function. Direct approaches to understanding such effects in donor wave functions are of great interest. Here, we apply a comprehensive atomistic theoretical framework to compute scanning …
Tunneling of electrons through the barriers in heterostructures has been studied, within unified transfer matrix approach. The effect of barrier width on the transmission coefficient of the electrons has been investigated for different pairs of semi conducting materials that are gaining much importance recently. These pairs include CdS/CdSe, AlGaAs/GaAs and InAs/AlSb. Barrier dimensions have been reduced from 20nm to 5nm to observe the effect of scaling on tunneling properties. Material depended is highlighted for electrons with energy varying from below the barrier height to above it. The ele…
Random number generation is crucial in many aspects of everyday life, as online security and privacy depend ultimately on the quality of random numbers. Many current implementations are based on pseudo-random number generators, but information security requires true random numbers for sensitive applications like key generation in banking, defence or even social media. True random number generators are systems whose outputs cannot be determined, even if their internal structure and response history are known. Sources of quantum noise are thus ideal for this application due to their intrinsic un…
