Time delay

Wojciech Jaworski, David M. Wardlaw

The problem of time delay in one-dimensional quantum-mechanical scattering by a potential barrier is studied in the framework of time-dependent scattering theory. It is shown how the concept of sojourn time can be used to define three separate time delays: the time delay for transmission through the barrier, the time delay for reflection, and the total time delay (i.e., averaged over transmission and reflection). In addition to the anticipated dependence on the S matrix and its energy derivative, the time delays depend on certain parameters which can be interpreted as describing positions of detectors in a gedanken-experiment measurement. The problem of defining separate time delays for transmission and reflection appears to be rooted in the foundations of quantum theory and its interpretation.

Miriam Frankel

H. M. Nussenzveig

Daniel Bakucz Canário, Michael Klaiber, Karen Z. Hatsagortsyan +1 more

The problem of time delay in tunneling ionization is revisited. The origin of time delay at the tunnel exit is analyzed, underlining the two faces of the concept of the tunneling time delay: the time delay around the tunnel exit and the asymptotic time delay at a detector. We show that the former time delay, in the sense of a delay in the peak of the wave function, exists as a matter of principle and arises due to the sub-barrier interference of the reflected and transmitted components of the tunneling electronic wave packet. We exemplify this by describing the tunneling ionization of an electron bound by a short-range potential within the strong-field approximation in a ``deep tunneling'' regime. If sub-barrier reflections are extracted from this wave function, then the time delay of the peak is shown to vanish. Thus, we assert that the disturbance of the tunneling wave packet by the reflection from the surface of the barrier causes a time delay in the neighborhood of the tunnel exit.

Dieter Meschede

Nikolai S. Bukhman

It is shown that the possibility of negative delay time of a pulse at the output of an optical system (compared to the pulse at its input) is a necessary consequence of the possibility of positive delay time of the pulse and the superposition principle. In particular, two optical systems with different positive delay times are sufficient for creating an optical system with a negative delay time. The negative delay time of a pulse can be considered as a spline extrapolation of its time dependence resulting from the interference of several copies of the pulse with different delays. It is shown that a negative delay time of a pulse arises necessarily in any interferometer in an area of destructive interference of two copies of the initial pulse that are similar in amplitude and undergo different delay times.