A. Agresti

SUPERLUMINAL PROCESSES AND SIGNAL VELOCITY IN TUNNELING SIMULATION

Abstract It has been demonstrated that microwave simulation is a powerful method for studying tunneling processes and in particular tunneling time. A semiclassical interpretation, based on the telegraphers equation, turned out to be in quite good agreement with the predictions of quantum-mechanical models but it works well also in connection with superluminal behaviours recently evidenced. The aim of this work is to demonstrate how evanescent waves account for superluminal processes: the plausibility of the results is discussed on the basis of signal analysis along the lines of the Sommerfeld-Brillouin criterion, as well as in the framework of special relativity.

How to employ microwaves for simulating quantum tunnelling

Abstract Delay-time results relative to a step-like microwave signal propagating in a waveguide in the cutoff region are interpreted by means of a path-integral solution of the telegrapher equation. This allows one to perform a simulation of the quantum tunnelling based on the analogy between (relativistic) particle motion and electromagnetic wave propagation with inclusion of dissipative effects.