On dynamical tunneling and classical resonances

Abstract

This work establishes a firm relationship between classical nonlinear resonances and the phenomenon of dynamical tunneling. It is shown that the classical phase space with its hierarchy of resonance islands completely characterizes dynamical tunneling and explicit forms of the dynamical barriers can be obtained only by identifying the key resonances. Relationship between the phase space viewpoint and the quantum mechanical superexchange approach is discussed in near-integrable and mixed regular-chaotic situations. For near-integrable systems with sufficient anharmonicity the effect of multiple resonances, i.e., resonance-assisted tunneling, can be incorporated approximately. It is also argued that the presumed relation of avoided crossings to nonlinear resonances does not have to be invoked in order to understand dynamical tunneling. For molecules with low density of states the resonance-assisted mechanism is expected to be dominant.