Measuring the time tunneling particles spend in the barrier

David C. Spierings; Aephraim M. Steinberg

doi:10.1117/12.2552583

25 February 2020 Measuring the time tunneling particles spend in the barrier

David C. Spierings, Aephraim M. Steinberg

Proceedings Volume 11296, Optical, Opto-Atomic, and Entanglement-Enhanced Precision Metrology II; 112960F (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2552583
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2020, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

The question of how long a tunneling particle spends in the forbidden region of a barrier has been a perplexing puzzle in foundational quantum mechanics for many decades. The Larmor time, one definition of tunneling time, uses an auxiliary degree of freedom of the tunneling particles to clock the time spent inside the barrier. Recently, we made our first measurement of the Larmor time for Bose-condensed ⁸⁷Rb atoms tunneling through an optical barrier.¹ Here, we report on follow up measurements with improved precision in the measured times and also study the time for the reflected atomic cloud. We observe significant discrepancies between our results and a simple theory based on weak measurement. We discuss our findings, hypothesize explanations for our results, and suggest future studies.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

David C. Spierings and Aephraim M. Steinberg "Measuring the time tunneling particles spend in the barrier", Proc. SPIE 11296, Optical, Opto-Atomic, and Entanglement-Enhanced Precision Metrology II, 112960F (25 February 2020); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2552583

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