corner
corner
APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 83 » Issue 17
< Previous Article | Next Article >

Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 3350–3353 (1999)

Speakable and Unspeakable in the Tunneling Time Problem

Download: PDF (79 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

Norifumi Yamada*
Laboratory for Nano-Electronic Materials, The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), 2-1 Hirosawa, Wakou, Saitama 351-0198, Japan

Received 28 December 1998; published in the issue dated 25 October 1999

A simple solution is given to the tunneling time problem from the viewpoint of interfering alternatives. Using Gell-Mann and Hartle's decoherence functional for real time Feynman histories, it is shown that (i) the probability distribution of tunneling times cannot be defined for “resident time” type but (ii) the range of values of the time is definable. The range turns out to be so broad for opaque barriers that a unique tunneling time cannot be considered even in a loose sense.

© 1999 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.3350
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.3350
PACS:
03.65.Bz, 03.65.Ca, 03.67.-a, 73.40.Gk

*Present address: National Research Institute for Metals, 1-2-1 Sengen, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0047, Japan.Electronic address: yamada@nrim.go.jp

 
< Previous Article | Next Article >