Quantum tunneling of a vortex between two pinning potentials

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that vortices in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates can quantum tunnel between pinning sites within a measurable timescale, and provides a theoretical framework to estimate tunneling rates.

Contribution

It introduces a phenomenological model treating vortices as charged particles in magnetic fields to calculate tunneling rates, aligning well with numerical simulations.

Findings

Vortices can tunnel between pinning potentials in about 1 second.

The phenomenological model agrees with stochastic c-field numerical simulations.

Experimental detection of vortex tunneling is feasible under typical conditions.

Abstract

A vortex can tunnel between two pinning potentials in an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate on a time scale of the order of 1s under typical experimental conditions. This makes it possible to detect the tunneling experimentally. We calculate the tunneling rate by phenomenologically treating vortices as point-like charged particles moving in an inhomogeneous magnetic field. The obtained results are in close agreement with numerical simulations based on the stochastic c-field theory.