Measurement of the time spent by a tunnelling atom within the barrier region

Nature
Ramón RamosAephraim M Steinberg

Abstract

Tunnelling is one of the most characteristic phenomena of quantum physics, underlying processes such as photosynthesis and nuclear fusion, as well as devices ranging from superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometers to superconducting qubits for quantum computers. The question of how long a particle takes to tunnel through a barrier, however, has remained contentious since the first attempts to calculate it1. It is now well understood that the group delay2-the arrival time of the peak of the transmitted wavepacket at the far side of the barrier-can be smaller than the barrier thickness divided by the speed of light, without violating causality. This has been confirmed by many experiments3-6, and a recent work even claims that tunnelling may take no time at all7. There have also been efforts to identify a different timescale that would better describe how long a given particle spends in the barrier region8-10. Here we directly measure such a time by studying Bose-condensed 87Rb atoms tunnelling through a 1.3-micrometre-thick optical barrier. By localizing a pseudo-magnetic field inside the barrier, we use the spin precession of the atoms as a clock to measure the time that they require to cross the classical...Continue Reading

References

Nov 15, 1987·Physical Review A: General Physics·D Sokolovski, L M Baskin
Jan 1, 1996·Physical Review. a·M Deutsch, J E Golub
Aug 2, 1993·Physical Review Letters·A M SteinbergR Y Chiao
Oct 24, 1994·Physical Review Letters·C SpielmannF Krausz
Mar 27, 1995·Physical Review Letters·A M Steinberg
Jun 25, 2016·Physical Review Letters·Tomáš ZimmermannAlexandra S Landsman
Jul 16, 2016·Physical Review Letters·A FortunD Guéry-Odelin
Feb 25, 2017·Physical Review Letters·Shreyas PotnisAephraim M Steinberg
Jul 29, 2017·Physical Review Letters·Nicolas CamusRobert Moshammer
Jan 20, 2018·Physical Review Letters·Michael KlaiberChristoph H Keitel
Mar 20, 2019·Nature·U Satya SainadhI V Litvinyuk

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Citations

May 13, 2021·Scientific Reports·D Sokolovski, E Akhmatskaya
Jun 13, 2021·Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology·Gizem ÇelebiDurmuş Demir
Sep 22, 2021·The Journal of Physical Chemistry. a·Deep Mukherjee, Upendra Harbola

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