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Physical review. B, Condensed matter

Resonances and oscillations in tunneling in a time-dependent potential

M. Ya. Azbel

Published Mar 15, 1991• 25 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A quantum particle, tunneling in a stationary potential, passes through a region with a weak slowly changing potential. Its probability density has resonances and oscillations in energy and in time, both in the barrier and beyond it. This is true in any dimensionality, for any type of waves (for example, de Broglie, electromagnetic, acoustic, and hydrodynamic waves).

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.43.6847

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A quantum particle, tunneling in a stationary potential, passes through a region with a weak slowly changing potential. Its probability density has resonances and oscillations in energy and in time, both in the barrier and beyond it. This is true in any dimensionality, for any type of waves (for example, de Broglie, electromagnetic, acoustic, and hydrodynamic waves).
In this paper, the tunnelling of a particle through a potential barrier is investigated in the presence of a time-dependent perturbation. The latter is attributed to the process of the energy measurement of the scattered particle. The time-dependent Schrödinger equation of the model is exactly solved. The probability density inside the barrier is calculated from the obtained wave function, proving that the tunnelling dynamics is determined not only by the transmitted and reflected waves but also by their interference. Furthermore, the interference term is time-dependent and contribute to the scattering process duration. The tunnelling time is calculated as the time needed to get the probability density inside the barrier to zero. This is the minimum duration of the measurement process before detecting the particle beyond the barrier. Based on this, a new method of estimating the tunnelling time by energy experimental measuring is proposed.
The usual WKB analysis for quantum tunneling applies when the tunneling action is large, as it is for tall, wide potential barriers. In contrast we analyze tunneling when the action is small, as it is for tunneling across a tall, thin barrier. We develop a perturbative analysis where the control parameter is the inverse of the area under the potential barrier and apply our technique to several examples in 1+11+11+1 dimensions. In resonant situations for bound particles we find that the tunneling probability grows with time as ∝t2\propto t^2∝t2, while in non-resonant situations it grows linearly with time. We evaluate not only the tunneling probability but also the time-dependent tunneling wavefunction for a particle that escapes to infinity, {\it i.e.} from a quasi-bound state to the continuum.
An exact analytic solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation with cutoff wave initial conditions, that goes into the stationary solution at asymptotically long times, is used to investigate the transient behavior in the time evolution of the probability density along the internal and transmitted regions of a potential barrier. The approach involves the complex poles and residues (resonant states) of the outgoing Green's function of the problem. The solution exhibits absence of propagation along the classically forbidden internal region of the potential, and along the transmitted region it splits into two propagating structures. One of them is a transient effect describing the earliest response of the system to the initial condition whereas the other structure evolves towards the stationary solution.
Numerical simulations of quantum tunneling with time-dependent barriers show that there is a resonance, with a marked increase in the tunneling current. For square barriers the resonance occurs when the tunneling particles absorb modulation quanta and the length of the barrier is a multiple of one-half de Broglie wavelengths. The resonance has a similar mechanism with triangular barriers. However, the relationship is more complex because the absorption and emission of modulation quanta takes place throughout the full length of the barrier, whereas this exchange only occurs at the ends of a square barrier.
The extremely small probability of tunneling through an almost classical potential barrier may become not small under the action of the specially adapted nonstationary signal which selects the certain particle energy ER.{E}_{R}.ER​. For particle energies close to this value, the tunneling rate is not small during a finite interval of time and has a very sharp peak at the energy ER.{E}_{R}.ER​. After entering inside the barrier, the particle emits electromagnetic quanta and exits the barrier with a lower energy. The signal amplitude can be much less compared to the field of the static barrier. This phenomenon can be called the Euclidean resonance since the under-barrier motion occurs in imaginary time. The resonance may stimulate chemical and biochemical reactions in a selective way by adapting the signal to a certain particular chemical bond. The resonance may be used in search of the soft-\ensuremath{\alpha}-particle decay for which a conventional observation is impossible due to an extremely small decay rate.
The Schrödinger equation is reformulated as a universal continuity equation, which connects between changes in the particles probability density distribution to probability current densities (fluxes). The formulation of particle conservation in terms of stationary fluxes enables one to associate stationary wave functions also to open quantum systems characterized by stationary particle currents. These functions are (improper) solutions of the stationary Schrödinger equation, obtained under scattering boundary conditions. These boundary conditions can be fulfilled for any positive asymptotic kinetic energy, hence, the energy spectrum of the scattering states is continuous. We demonstrate flux calculations in scattering through a one-dimensional potential energy well/barrier, focusing on transmission and reflection probabilities. Nonclassical phenomena such as transmission at energies below a potential energy barrier (quantum tunneling), or reflections at energies above a potential energy well are analyzed. The phenomenon of full transmission through a double barrier structure (resonant tunneling) is introduced in the context of nanoscale transport.