Tunneling through a parabolic barrier viewed from Wigner phase space

We introduce a new exactly integrable potential for the Schr\"odinger equation for which the solution of the problem may be expressed in terms of the Gauss hypergeometric functions. This is a potential step with variable height and steepness. We present the general solution of the problem, discuss the transmission of a quantum particle above the barrier, and derive explicit expressions for the reflection and transmission coefficients.

The phenomenon of quantum tunneling is reviewed and an overview of applying approximate methods for studying this effect is given. An approach to a time-dependent formalism is proposed in one dimension and generalized to higher dimensions. Some physical examples involving the resulting wavefunction which is determined are presented.

We present a pedagogical description of the inversion of Gamow's tunnelling formula and we compare it with the corresponding classical problem. We also discuss the issue of uniqueness in the solution and the result is compared with that obtained by the method of Gel'fand and Levitan. We hope that the article will be a valuable source to students who have studied classical mechanics and have some familiarity with quantum mechanics.

We describe a computational investigation of tunneling at finite energy in a weakly coupled quantum mechanical system with two degrees of freedom. We compare a full quantum mechanical analysis to the results obtained by making use of a semiclassical technique developed in the context of instanton-like transitions in quantum field theory. This latter technique is based on an analytic continuation of the degrees of freedom into a complex phase space, and the simultaneous analyt...

We consider a symmetric double barrier heterostructure enclosing a well and propose a solution for the transmission problem using a generalized WKB approach which accounts for the amplitude suppression and phase shift due to the barriers. This approach allows us to address both off-resonance and resonance cases and, in the latter case, verify the coherent destruction of tunneling.

We show that an appropriate choice of the potential parameters in one-dimensional quantum systems allows for unity transmission of the tunneling particle at all incident tunneling energies, except at controllable exceedingly small incident energies. The corresponding dwell time and the transmission amplitude are indistinguishable from those of a free particle in the unity-transmission regime. This implies the possibility of designing quantum systems that are invisible to tunn...

Quantum tunneling across multiple barriers as yet is an unsolved problem for barrier numbers greater than five. The complexity of the mathematical analysis even for small number of barriers pushed it into the realms of Numerical Analysis. This work is aimed at providing a rigorously correct solution to the general N barrier problem, where N can be any positive integer. An exact algebraic solution has been presented, which overcomes the complexity of the WKB integrals that are...

Attempts to find a quantum-to-classical correspondence in a classically forbidden region leads to non-physical paths, involving, for example, complex time or spatial coordinates. Here, we identify genuine quasi-classical paths for tunneling in terms of probabilistic correlations in sequential time-of-arrival measurements. In particular, we construct the post-selected probability density $P_{p.s.}(x, \tau)$ for a particle to be found at time $\tau$ in position $x$ inside the f...

Usually tunneling is established after imposing some matching conditions on the (time-independent) wave function and its first derivative at the boundaries of a barrier. Here an alternative scheme is proposed to determine tunneling and estimate transmission probabilities in time-dependent problems, which takes advantage of the trajectory picture provided by Bohmian mechanics. From this theory a general functional expression for the transmission probability in terms of the sys...

By directly integrating the Schroedinger starting in the transmission region and working backwards through the barrier, the tunneling probability can be determined for arbitrary potential barriers. The method employs techniques familiar to undergraduates and is used here to study resonant tunneling.