2025/02/24 by Søren Fournais, Fournais, Søren, Yannick Guedes Bonthonneau +5 · 1 citation
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #35P15 #35Q40 #81Q20 #81U26 #FOS: Mathematics #FOS: Physical sciences #Magnetic properties of thin films #Mathematical Physics (math-ph) #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Spectral Theory (math.SP) #Spectral Theory in Mathematical Physics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2502.17290
openalex publication_date 2025/02/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The two-dimensional magnetic Laplacian is considered. We calculate the leading term of the splitting between the first two eigenvalues of the operator in the semiclassical limit under the assumption that the magnetic field does not vanish and has two symmetric magnetic wells with respect to the coordinate axes. This is the first result of quantum tunneling between purely magnetic wells under generic assumptions. The proof, which strongly relies on microlocal analysis, reveals a purely magnetic Agmon distance between the wells. Surprisingly, it is discovered that the exponential decay of the eigenfunctions away from the magnetic wells is not crucial to derive the tunneling formula. The key is a microlocal exponential decay inside the characteristic manifold, with respect to the variable quantizing the classical center guide motion.