1205.0366 (Gianluca Rastelli)

Asymmetry effects on the quantum tunneling in the double-well    [PDF]

Gianluca Rastelli

We analyze quantum tunneling in an arbitrary asymmetric double-well potential. In the regime of strong localization, the low energy dynamics of the system reduces to the standard two-level system characterized by an effective quantum tunneling amplitude. By using the WKB semiclassical method, we derive a simple, useful textbook formula for the tunneling amplitude which takes into account the asymmetry. We show two examples of how the asymmetry affects the tunneling for the degenerate and not degenerate case. For the case with degeneracy, we also discuss a time-dependent problem showing Quantum Zeno effect.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.0366