Scale-free relaxation of a wave packet in a quantum well with power-law tails

Salvatore Miccichè, Andreas Buchleitner, Fabrizio Lillo, Rosario N. Mantegna, Tobias Paul, Sandro Wimberger

Published 2012-11-27, updated 2013-02-10Version 2

We propose a setup for which a power-law decay is predicted to be observable for generic and realistic conditions. The system we study is very simple: A quantum wave packet initially prepared in a potential well with (i) tails asymptotically decaying like ~ x^{-2} and (ii) an eigenvalues spectrum that shows a continuous part attached to the ground or equilibrium state. We analytically derive the asymptotic decay law from the spectral properties for generic, confined initial states. Our findings are supported by realistic numerical simulations for state-of-the-art expansion experiments with cold atoms.