Using results from the theory of dynamical systems, we derive a general expression for the classical average scattering dwell time, tau_av. Remarkably, tau_av depends only on a ratio of phase space volumes. We further show that, for a wide class of systems, the average classical dwell time is not in correspondence with the energy average of the quantum Wigner time delay.
The general and explicit relation between the phase time and the dwell time for quantum tunneling or scattering is investigated. Considering a symmetrical collision of two identical wave packets with an one-dimensional barrier, here we demonstrate that these two distinct transit time definitions give connected results where, however, the phase time (group delay) accurately describes the exact position of the scattered particles. The analytical difficulties that arise when the stationary phase method is employed for obtaining phase (traversal) times are all overcome. Multiple wave packet decomp…
The concept of phase and dwell times used in tunneling is extended to quantum collisions to derive a relation between the phase and dwell time delays in scattering. This relation can be used to remove the near threshold s-wave singularities in the Wigner-Eisenbud delay times and amounts to an extension of the concept of quantum reflection to strong interactions. Dwell time delay emerges as the quantity which gives the correct behaviour of the density of states of a metastable state at all energies. This fact is demonstrated by investigating some recently found metastable states of mesic-nuclei…
The lifetime of an unstable state or resonance formed as an intermediate state in two body scattering is known to be related to the dwell time or the time spent within a given region of space by the two interacting particles. This concept is extended to the case of three body systems and a relation connecting the three body dwell time with the two body dwell times of the substructures of the three body system is derived for the case of separable wave functions. The Kapur Peierls formalism is revisited to discover one of the first definitions of dwell time in literature. An extension of the Kap…
This chapter reviews several quantities that have been proposed in scattering theory to characterize the temporal aspects of one dimensional collisions: the dwell time, the delay time, the decay time, and times characterizing transient effects or the attainment of stationary conditions. Some aspects of tunnelling times are also discussed.
Within the framework of Bohmian mechanics dwell times find a straightforward formulation. The computation of associated probabilities and distributions however needs the explicit knowledge of a relevant sample of trajectories and therefore implies formidable numerical effort. Here a trajectory free formulation for the average transmission and reflection dwell times within static spatial intervals [a,b] is given for one-dimensional scattering problems. This formulation reduces the computation time to less than 5% of the computation time by means of trajectory sampling.
Some fundamental and formal aspects of the quantum dwell time are reviewed, examples for free motion and scattering off a potential barrier are provided, as well as extensions of the concept. We also examine the connection between the dwell time of a quantum particle in a region of space and flux-flux correlations at the boundaries, as well as operational approaches and approximations to measure the flux-flux correlation function and thus the second moment of the dwell time, which is shown to be characteristically quantum, and larger than the corresponding classical moment even for freely movi…
We study the energy properties of a particle in one dimensional semi-harmonic rectangular wells and barriers. The integration of energies is obtained by solving a simple transcendental equation. Scattering states are shown to include cases in which the impinging particle is 'captured' by the semi-harmonic rectangular potentials. The 'time of capture' is connected with the dwell time of the scattered wave. Using the particle absorption method, it is shown that the dwell time $τ^a_D$ coincides with the phase time $τ_W$ of Eisenbud and Wigner, calculated as the energy derivative of the reflected …
We develop a new quantum-mechanical approach to scattering a particle on a one-dimensional (1D) system of two identical rectangular potential barriers, which implies modelling the dynamics of its subprocesses -- transmission and reflection -- at all stages of scattering. On its basis we define, for each subprocess, the dwell time as well as the local (exact) and asymptotic (extrapolated) group times. Our concept of the asymptotic transmission group time confirms the validity of the Wigner phase time in the opaque limit, as well as the existence of the usual and generalized Hartman effects pred…
A {\it completed} scattering of a particle on a static one-dimensional (1D) potential barrier is a combined quantum process to consist from two elementary sub-processes (transmission and reflection) evolved coherently at all stages of scattering and macroscopically distinct at the final stage. The existing model of the process is clearly inadequate to its nature: all one-particle "observables" and "tunneling times", introduced as quantities to be common for the sub-processes, cannot be experimentally measured and, consequently, have no physical meaning; on the contrary, quantities introduced f…
The reflection and transmission Salecker-Wigner-Peres clock times averaged over the post-selected reflected and transmitted sub-ensembles, respectively, are investigated for the one dimensional scattering of a localized wave packet through an asymmetric barrier. The dwell time averaged over the same post-selected sub-ensembles is also considered. The emergence of negative average reflection times is examined and we show that while the average over the reflected sub-ensemble eliminates the negative peaks at resonance for the clock time, it still allows negative values for transparent barriers. …
A quasi-free quantum particle endowed with Heaviside position dependent mass jump is observed to experience scattering effects manifested by its by-product introduction of the derivative of the Dirac's-delta point dipole interaction. Using proper parametric mappings, the reflection and transmission coefficients are obtained. A new ordering ambiguity parameters set, as the only feasibly admissible within the current methodical proposal, is suggested.
In this paper, we calculate the quantum time delays for neutron scattering off the Earth's linear gravitational potential. The quantum time delays are obtained by subtracting the classical returning time (CRT) from the Wigner time, the dwell time and the redefined Larmor time respectively. Different from the conventional definition, our Larmor time is defined by aligning the magnetic field along the neutron propagation direction, and this definition does give reasonable results for motions through a free region and a square barrier. It is worth noting that in the zero magnetic field limit, the…
We present a new model of scattering a quantum particle on the potential step, which reconstructs the prehistory of the subensembles of transmitted and reflected particles by their final states. Unlike the conventional one this model predicts the existence of a transitional spatial region behind the potential step where the probability to find reflected particles is nonzero and the average velocity of transmitted particles monotonously varies between asymptotic values. For both subprocesses we define the dwell and asymptotic group times.
The generation of entanglement produced by a local potential interaction in a bipartite system is investigated. The degree of entanglement is contrasted with the underlying classical dynamics for a Rydberg molecule (a charged particle colliding on a kicked top). Entanglement is seen to depend on the structure of classical phase-space rather than on the global dynamical regime. As a consequence regular classical dynamics can in certain circumstances be associated with higher entanglement generation than chaotic dynamics. In addition quantum effects also come into play: for example partial reviv…
Entanglement is usually associated with compound systems. We first show that a one-dimensional (1D) completed scattering of a particle on a static potential barrier represents an entanglement of two alternative one-particle sub-processes, transmission and reflection, macroscopically distinct at the final stage of scattering. The wave function for the whole ensemble of scattering particles can be uniquely presented as the sum of two isometrically evolved wave packets to describe the (to-be-)transmitted and (to-be-)reflected subensembles of particles at all stages of scattering. A noninvasive La…
The conventional bulk-boundary correspondence breaks down in non-Hermitian systems. In this paper, we reestablish the bulk-boundary correspondence in one-dimensional non-Hermitian systems by applying the scattering theory, which is a systematical way in various symmetry classes. Based on the scattering theory, it is discovered that the topological invariant can be obtained by solving a generalized eigenproblem without calculating the generalized Brillouin zone. As a direct consequence, we unveil a new type of topological phase transition without typical bulk enengy gap closing and an unstable …
An exact time-dependent solution for the wave function $ψ(r,t)$ of a particle moving in the presence of an asymmetric rectangular well/barrier potential varying in one dimension is obtained by applying a novel for this problem approach using multiple scattering theory (MST) for the calculation of the space-time propagator. This approach, based on the localized at the potential jumps effective potentials responsible for transmission through and reflection from the considered rectangular potential, enables considering these processes from a particle (rather than a wave) point of view. The soluti…
We present a detailed analysis of the scattering of charged particles by the magnetic field of a long solenoid of constant magnetic flux and finite radius. We study the relativistic and non-relativistic quantum and classical scenarios. The classical limit of the perturbative quantum expressions, understood as the Planck's limit (making $\hbar$ going to zero) is analyzed and compared with the classical result. The classical cross section shows a general non-symmetric behavior with respect to the scattering angle in contradistinction to the quantum calculations performed so far. The various regi…
We present a semiclassical approximation to the scattering wavefunction $Ψ(\mathbf{r},k)$ for an open quantum billiard which is based on the reconstruction of the Feynman path integral. We demonstrate its remarkable numerical accuracy for the open rectangular billiard and show that the convergence of the semiclassical wavefunction to the full quantum state is controlled by the path length or equivalently the dwell time. Possible applications include leaky billiards and systems with decoherence present.
In two companion papers it was shown how to separate out from a scattering function in quantum electrodynamics a distinguished part that meets the correspondence-principle and pole-factorization requirements. The integrals that define the terms of the remainder are here shown to have singularities on the pertinent Landau singularity surface that are weaker than those of the distinguished part. These remainder terms therefore vanish, relative to the distinguished term, in the appropriate macroscopic limits. This shows, in each order of the perturbative expansion, that quantum electrodynamics do…
The trajectory of motion of a scattering electron in the Coulomb potential from the wave function of the Schroedinger equation is presented in two ways, spherical polar coordinates and Temple coordinates, and is compared with each other and with the corresponding motion of classical mechanics. A good correspondence among dynamics by wave functions and the classical dynamics has been acknowledged by comparing computed examples.Detailed computing examples discriminate the optimal dynamics of the wave function that should be verified by an experiment.
The delay time associated with a scattering process is one of the most important dynamical aspects in quantum mechanics. A common measure of this is the Wigner delay time based on the group velocity description of a wave-packet, which my easily indicate super-luminal or even negative times of interaction that are unacceptable. Many other measures such as dwell times have been proposed, but also suffer from serious deficiencies, particularly for evanescent waves. One important way of realising a timescale that is causally connected to the spatial region of interest has been to utilize the dynam…
In this paper we compare the concept of the tunneling time introduced in quant-ph/0405028 with those of the phase and dwell times. As is shown, unlike the latter our definition of the transmission time coincides, in the limit of weak scattering potentials, with that for a free particle. This is valid for all values of the particle's momentum, including the case of however slow particles. All three times are also considered for a resonant tunneling. In all the cases the main feature to distinguish our concept from others is that the average starting point of transmitted (reflected) particles do…
The aim of this article is to relate the discrete quantum walk on $\mathbb{Z}$ with the continuous Schrödinger operator on $\mathbb{R}$ in the scattering problem. Each point of $\mathbb{Z}$ is associated with a barrier of the potential, and the coin operator of the quantum walk is determined by the transfer matrix between bases of WKB solutions on the classically allowed regions of both sides of the barrier. This correspondence enables us to represent each entry of the scattering matrix of the Schrödinger operator as a countable sum of probability amplitudes associated with the paths of the qu…