A general scenario of tunneling time in different energy regimes

We theoretically study the tunneling time by investigating a wave packet of Bose-condensed atoms passing through a square barrier. We find that the tunneling time exhibits different scaling laws in different energy regimes. For negative incident energy of the wave packet, counterintuitively, the tunneling time decreases very rapidly with decreasing incident velocity. In contrast, for positive incident energy smaller than the barrier height, the tunneling time increases slowly and then reaches a maximum, which is in agreement with the Larmor clock experiments. The effect of the barrier width related to the uncertainty principle on the maximum tunneling time is also addressed. Our work provides a general scenario of tunneling time that can be used to understand and explain the controversy over tunneling time.

Automated summary

This paper theoretically studies the tunneling time of a wave packet of Bose-condensed atoms passing through a square barrier. The authors find that the tunneling time shows different scaling laws in different energy regimes. For negative incident energy, the tunneling time decreases rapidly with decreasing incident velocity. In contrast, for positive incident energy smaller than the barrier height, the tunneling time increases slowly and then reaches a maximum, consistent with experimental results from Larmor clock experiments. The effect of barrier width on the maximum tunneling time, related to the uncertainty principle, is also discussed.