Explanation of the tunneling phenomena between the edges of two lateral quantum Hall systems

We identify the physics behind the results of recent measurements (Nature 403 (2000) 59) of electron transfer between the edges of two two-dimensional electron systems (2DES). We find that a consistent explanation of all of the observed phenomena is possible if the barrier between the 2DES is surrounded by a strong potential well that supports quantum railroads of edge channels that, in the presence of disorder, exhibit directed localization.