Chaos Assisted Tunneling from Superdeformed States

The tunneling process that governs the decay from superdeformed to normal-deformed nuclear states is shown to be enhanced by several orders of magnitude ( ${10}^{4}--{10}^{6}$) if the normal-deformed states are chaotic at the moment of decay out. The onset of (long-range) chaos may imply that the tunneling enhancement increases with decreasing angular momentum. Experimental signatures are discussed.

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