Origin of strong scarring of wavefunctions in quantum wells in a tilted magnetic field

TL;DR

This paper explains the strong wavefunction scarring in quantum wells under tilted magnetic fields by linking it to nearly stable classical periodic orbits, providing insights into experimental tunneling spectra.

Contribution

It identifies specific nearly stable periodic orbits responsible for strong wavefunction scarring in quantum wells with tilted magnetic fields.

Findings

Strong wavefunction scarring is due to special classical orbits.

Nearly stable periodic orbits dominate the observed spectra.

Semiclassical analysis explains the experimental results.

Abstract

The anomalously strong scarring of wavefunctions found in numerical studies of quantum wells in a tilted magnetic field is shown to be due to special properties of the classical dynamics of this system. A certain subset of periodic orbits are identified which are nearly stable over a very large interval of variation of the classical dynamics; only this subset are found to exhibit strong scarring. Semiclassical arguments shed further light on why these orbits dominate the experimentally observed tunneling spectra.