TY - JOUR
T1 - Quantum tunneling and its absence in deep wells and strong magnetic fields
AU - Fefferman, Charles L.
AU - Shapiro, Jacob
AU - Weinstein, Michael I.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 the Author(s).
PY - 2025/2/25
Y1 - 2025/2/25
N2 - We present results on quantum tunneling between deep potential wells, in the presence of a strong constant magnetic field. We construct a family of double-well potentials containing examples for which the low-energy eigenvalue splitting vanishes, and hence quantum tunneling is eliminated. Further, by deforming within this family, the magnetic ground state can be made to transition from symmetric to antisymmetric. However, for typical double wells in a certain regime, tunneling is not suppressed, and we provide a lower bound for the eigenvalue splitting.
AB - We present results on quantum tunneling between deep potential wells, in the presence of a strong constant magnetic field. We construct a family of double-well potentials containing examples for which the low-energy eigenvalue splitting vanishes, and hence quantum tunneling is eliminated. Further, by deforming within this family, the magnetic ground state can be made to transition from symmetric to antisymmetric. However, for typical double wells in a certain regime, tunneling is not suppressed, and we provide a lower bound for the eigenvalue splitting.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85219285477&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85219285477&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2420062122
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2420062122
M3 - Article
C2 - 39982747
AN - SCOPUS:85219285477
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 122
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 8
M1 - e2420062122
ER -