Theory of nonlinear Landau-Zener tunneling

A nonlinear Landau-Zener model was proposed recently to describe, among a number of applications, the nonadiabatic transition of a Bose-Einstein condensate between Bloch bands. Numerical analysis revealed a striking phenomenon that tunneling occurs even in the adiabatic limit as the nonlinear parameter $C$ is above a critical value equal to the gap $V$ of avoided crossing of the two levels. In this paper, we present analytical results that give quantitative account of the breakdown of adiabaticity by mapping this quantum nonlinear model into a classical Josephson Hamiltonian. In the critical region, we find a power-law scaling of the nonadiabatic transition probability as a function of $C/V-1$ and $\alpha$, the crossing rate of the energy levels. In the subcritical regime, the transition probability still follows an exponential law but with the exponent changed by the nonlinear effect. For $C/V>>1$, we find a near unit probability for the transition between the adiabatic levels for all values of the crossing rate.