Periodic oscillation of quantum diffusion in coupled one-dimensional systems

We analytically show that quantum diffusion in the coupled system composed of two identical chains exhibits a well-defined periodic oscillation in both transverse and longitudinal directions with a frequency determined by the interchain hopping strength, no matter whether the chains are periodic or non-periodic. We illustrate the result through numerical work on the coupled periodic chains and the quasiperiodic Aubry-Andre-Harper(AAH) chains with various modulations of onsite potentials supporting extended, critical, and localized states. We further numerically show that quantum diffusion in the coupled chains of different degrees of disorder W exhibits an exponential decay oscillation similar to the behavior of an underdamped harmonic oscillator, with a decay time inversely proportional to the square of W and a slight frequency change proportional to the square of W. Moreover, quantum diffusions in the coupled systems composed of two different chains are numerically studied, including periodic/disordered chains, periodic/AAH chains, and two different AAH chains, which exhibit the same behavior of underdamped periodic oscillation if the onsite potential difference between two chains is smaller than the interchain hoping strength.Existence of this universal periodic oscillation is a result of spectral splitting of the iso-spectra of two chains determined by interchain hopping, independent of system size, boundary condition, and intrachain onsite potentials. Because the oscillation frequency and spreading distance of wavepacket can be tuned separately by interchain hopping and intrachain potentials, the periodic oscillation of quantum diffusion in coupled chains is expected to find applications in control of quantum states and in designing nanoscale quantum devices.