Quantum tunneling through vacuum-multiparticle induced potentials

Abstract

The vacuum cavity mode induces a potential barrier and a well when an ultra-slow excited atom enters the interaction region so that it can be reflected or transmitted with a certain probability. We demonstrate here that a slow-velocity excited particle tunnels freely through a vacuum electromagnetic field mode filled with $N-1$ ground state atoms. The reason for this is the trapping of the moving atom into its upper state due to multiparticle influences and the corresponding decoupling from the interaction with the environment such that the emitter does not {\it see} the induced potentials.