Coherent macroscopic quantum tunneling in boson-fermion mixtures

Abstract

We show that the cold atom systems of simultaneously trapped Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC's) and quantum degenerate fermionic atoms provide promising laboratories for the study of macroscopic quantum tunneling. Our theoretical studies reveal that the spatial extent of a small trapped BEC immersed in a Fermi sea can tunnel and coherently oscillate between the values of the separated and mixed configurations (the phases of the phase separation transition of BEC-fermion systems). We evaluate the period, amplitude and dissipation rate for 23Na and 40K-atoms and we discuss the experimental prospects for observing this phenomenon.