A New Phase Time Formula for Opaque Barrier Tunneling

Abstract

After a brief review of the derivation of the standard phase time formula, based on the use of the stationary phase method, we propose, in the opaque limit, an alternative method to calculate the phase time. The new formula for the phase time is in excellent agreement with the numerical simulations and shows that for wave packets whose upper limit of the momentum distribution is very close to the barrier height, the transit time is proportional to the barrier width.