Quantum tunneling without a barrier

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Abstract

Tunneling is an iconic concept that captures the peculiarity of quantum dynamics but, despite its ubiquity, questions remain. We focus on strong-field tunneling, which is vital to all attosecond science. We find an unexpected optical tunneling event that happens when the instantaneous electric field vanishes and there is no barrier. This event arises from a color switchover in a strongly polychromatic field. The tunneling without a barrier reveals the disconnect between the standard intuition built on the picture of a quasistatic barrier and the nonadiabatic nature of the process.
Original languageEnglish
Article number043103
JournalPhysical Review A
Volume111
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Apr 2025

Keywords

  • quant-ph
  • physics.atom-ph
  • physics.optics

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