Tunneling Time for Walking Droplets on an Oscillating Liquid Surface

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Hung, Chuan-Yu, Hsieh, Ting-Heng, Hong, Tzay-Ming
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Hung, Chuan-Yu
Hsieh, Ting-Heng
Hong, Tzay-Ming
author_facet Hung, Chuan-Yu
Hsieh, Ting-Heng
Hong, Tzay-Ming
contents In recent years, Couder and collaborators have initiated a series of studies on walking droplets. Experimentally, they found that at frequencies and amplitudes close to the onset of Faraday waves, droplets on the surface of silicone oil can survive and walk at a roughly constant speed due to resonance. Droplets excite local ripples from the Faraday instability when they bounce from the liquid surface. This tightly coupled particle-wave entity, although a complex yet entirely classical system, exhibits many phenomena that are strikingly similar to those of quantum systems, such as slit interference and diffraction, tunneling probability, and Anderson localization. In this Letter, we focus on the tunneling time of droplets. Specifically, we explore (1) how it changes with the width of an acrylic barrier, which gives rise to the potential barrier when the depth of the silicone oil is reduced to prevent the generation of ripples that can feed energy back to the droplet, and (2) the distribution of tunneling times at the same barrier width. Both results turn out to be similar to the numerical outcome of the Bohmian mechanics, which strengthens the analogy to a quantum system. Furthermore, we successfully derive analytic expressions for these properties by revising the multiple scattering theory and constructing a ``skipping stone" model. Provided that the resemblance in tunneling behavior of walking droplets to Bohmian particles is not coincidental, we discuss the lessons for the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics that so far fails to explain both characteristics adequately.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_11934
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Tunneling Time for Walking Droplets on an Oscillating Liquid Surface
Hung, Chuan-Yu
Hsieh, Ting-Heng
Hong, Tzay-Ming
Chaotic Dynamics
In recent years, Couder and collaborators have initiated a series of studies on walking droplets. Experimentally, they found that at frequencies and amplitudes close to the onset of Faraday waves, droplets on the surface of silicone oil can survive and walk at a roughly constant speed due to resonance. Droplets excite local ripples from the Faraday instability when they bounce from the liquid surface. This tightly coupled particle-wave entity, although a complex yet entirely classical system, exhibits many phenomena that are strikingly similar to those of quantum systems, such as slit interference and diffraction, tunneling probability, and Anderson localization. In this Letter, we focus on the tunneling time of droplets. Specifically, we explore (1) how it changes with the width of an acrylic barrier, which gives rise to the potential barrier when the depth of the silicone oil is reduced to prevent the generation of ripples that can feed energy back to the droplet, and (2) the distribution of tunneling times at the same barrier width. Both results turn out to be similar to the numerical outcome of the Bohmian mechanics, which strengthens the analogy to a quantum system. Furthermore, we successfully derive analytic expressions for these properties by revising the multiple scattering theory and constructing a ``skipping stone" model. Provided that the resemblance in tunneling behavior of walking droplets to Bohmian particles is not coincidental, we discuss the lessons for the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics that so far fails to explain both characteristics adequately.
title Tunneling Time for Walking Droplets on an Oscillating Liquid Surface
topic Chaotic Dynamics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.11934