ar X iv : n lin / 0 50 80 24 v 1 [ nl in . C D ] 1 7 A ug 2 00 5 1 Resonance - and Chaos - Assisted Tunneling

We consider dynamical tunneling between two symmetry-related regular islands that are separated in phase space by a chaotic sea. Such tunneling processes are dominantly governed by nonlinear resonances, which induce a coupling mechanism between “regular” quantum states within and “chaotic” states outside the islands. By means of a random matrix ansatz for the chaotic part of the Hamiltonian, one can show that the corresponding coupling matrix element directly determines the level splitting between the symmetric and the antisymmetric eigenstates of the pair of islands. We show in detail how this matrix element can be expressed in terms of elementary classical quantities that are associated with the resonance. The validity of this theory is demonstrated with the kicked Harper model.