Fractal dimensions in tunneling processes and effects of environmental fluctuations
Date
1998-03Author
Kovanis, Vassilios
Grigolini, Paolo
Kenkre, V.M.
Tsironis, George
Metadata
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We study electron tunneling between two infinte potential square wells connected via an opaque barrier and find that time evolution of the probability of the presence of a Gaussian wave packet, localized initially in one of the wells, shares the fractal behavior of tunneling in a quartic potential, discovered by Dekker (H. Dekker, Phys. Rev.A35, 1825 (1987). However, the fractal dimensions are found to be closer to those of a conventional Weierstrass function than those appropriate to the quasi-Weierstrass behavior of Dekker. It is argued that the usual exponential decay predicted by conventional relaxation processes can be recovered only as an effect of thermal fluctuations.