Nature of "superluminal" barrier tunneling.
We show that the distortionless tunneling of electromagnetic pulses through a barrier is a quasistatic process in which the slowly varying envelope of the incident pulse modulates the amplitude of a standing wave. For pulses longer than the barrier width, the barrier acts as a lumped element with respect to the pulse envelope. The envelopes of the transmitted and reflected fields can adiabatically follow the incident pulse with only a small delay that originates from energy storage. The theory presented here provides a physical explanation of the tunneling process and resolves the mystery of apparent superluminality.
Winful
Herbert G
HG
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, 1301 Beal Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2122, USA.