Classical Tunneling from the Lorentz-Dirac Equation

Abstract

The classical equation of motion of a charged point particle, including its radiation reaction, is described by the Lorentz-Dirac equation. We found a new class of solutions that describe tunneling (in a completely classical context!). For nonrelativistic electrons and a square barrier, the solution is elementary and explicit. We show the persistance of the solution for smoother potentials. For a large range of initial velocities, initial conditions may leave a (discrete) ambiguity on the resulting motion.