Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences

Symmetry-Induced Tunneling in One-Dimensional Disordered Potentials

Authors: ALBERTO RODRIGUEZ (Department of Physics and Centre for Scientific Computing, University of Warwick, CV4 7AL United Kingdom), FELIX IZRAILEV (Instituto de Fisica, Universidad Autonoma de Puebla. Apartado Postal J-48, Puebla, 72570 Mexico), ARKADY KROKHIN (Department of Physics, University of North Texas, P.O. Box 311427, Denton, TX 76203), ENRIQUE DIEZ (Departamento de Fisica Fundamental. Universidad de Salamanca. 37008 Salamanca. Spain)

Abstract

A new mechanism of tunnelling at macroscopic distances is proposed for a wave packet localized in a one-dimensional disordered potential with mirror symmetry, V (-x) = V (x). Unlike quantum tunnelling through a regular potential barrier, which occurs only at the energies lower than the barrier height, the proposed mechanism of tunnelling exists even for weak white-noise-like scattering potentials. It also exists in classical circuits of resonant contours with random resonant frequencies. The latter property may be used as a new method of secure communication, which does not require coding and decoding of the transmitting signal.