Metastable States of a Coupled Pair on a Repulsive Barrier

Abstract

Resonance penetration of two coupled particles through a repulsive barrier is considered. It is shown that a local minimum of the total potential generates metastable bound states, and their spectrum determines the position of resonances in the penetration probability. It is pointed out that the probabilities of tunneling of two interacting particles from the false vacuum can be essentially higher than it has been assumed earlier.