Eur. Phys. J. D 41, 49-54 (2007)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2006-00188-9

Interference and dispersion effects on tunneling time

¹ Natural Science Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore, 637616, P.R. China
² Physics Department, Mataram University, Lombok, Indonesia

Corresponding author: ^a jcmartin@nie.edu.sg

Received: 24 November 2005
Revised: 21 July 2006
Published online: 18 August 2006

Abstract

We study the interplay between pulse width, interference and tunneling for a wave packet incident upon a barrier and, within the context of tunneling time, we offer a complementary insight into the origin of the Hartman effect. We find that interference together with momentum spread lower (increase) the transmission (reflection) tunneling time thereby `breaking the symmetry between transmission and reflection times'. But, within the limits of our method, we are unable to confirm that negative tunneling time can be obtained.