Dynamical resonance and tunneling in a driven system with periodic potential Original Research Article

The effects of a time periodic driving field on the band structure of a particle moving in a one-dimensional periodic potential are analysed. The field frequency is chosen to be in resonance with the motion in the potential wells. Under these conditions, complicated quasienergy band structures and tunneling collapse features appear in the driven system. The relatively low fields associated with these patterns allow for a resonance perturbation approximation which simplifies considerably the analysis. The observed features are then understood as a non-trivial interplay between mixing and tunneling processes. Some interesting situations may be analytically described by a new two-band tight-binding model.