QUANTUM TUNNELING AND CHAOTIC DYNAMICS

We investigate the effect of the structure of a mixed (regular and cha otic) phase-space on the process of tunneling. This is done by studyin g the way in which classical transport in phase-space affects the ener gy splitting of quasidoublets of the spectrum of the laplacian on an a nnular domain bounded by two non-concentric circles. The tunneling is increased as the transport through chaotic regions grows. The actual v alue of the energy splitting of a given doublet is very sensitive to i ts position in the energy spectrum as well as to its location in phase -space.