On Quantum Scattering of a System with Internal Degrees of Freedom

Abstract

We study the quantum tunnelling of a very complex object of which only part is coupled to an external potential ( the potential barrier ). We treat this problem as the tunnelling of a particle (part of the system affected by the potential) coupled to a ``heat bath" ( all of the remaining degrees of freedom ) from the point of view of the wavefunction of the whole system. We obtain an effective scattering equation for this wavefunction which resembles the integral equation for the wavefunction of the particle in the absence of the bath. We show that the effect of the interaction is to renormalize the mass and the potential of the problem and that these new parameters can be solely described in terms of the spectral function of the excitations of the system.