Assisted Tunneling of a metastable state between barriers

TL;DR

This paper analytically investigates how a time-dependent perturbation influences the tunneling decay of a metastable state in a simplified 1D model, providing new insights relevant to nuclear alpha decay.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analytical approach to study assisted tunneling effects on metastable states, revealing how perturbations alter decay properties.

Findings

Perturbation increases the decay constant of the metastable state.

New spectral features emerge due to the perturbation.

Results are exemplified with parameters relevant to alpha decay.

Abstract

The assisted tunneling of a metastable state between barriers is investigated analytically by means of a simplified one dimensional model. A time dependent perturbation changes the pole spectrum of the wave function introducing a larger decay constant. New insights about the decay of a metastable state are found. The scheme is exemplified for parameters corresponding to the nuclear process of $\alpha$ decay.