Larmor precession and barrier tunneling time of a neutral spinning particle

Abstract

The Larmor precession of a neutral spinning particle in a magnetic field confined to the region of a one dimensional-rectangular barrier is investigated for both a nonrelativistic and a relativistic incoming particle. The spin precession serves as a clock to measure the time spent by a quantum particle traversing a potential barrier. With the help of general spin coherent state it is explicitly shown that the precession time is equal to the dwell time in both the nonrelativistic and relativistic cases. We also present a numerical estimation of the precession time showing an apparent superluminal tunneling.