Quantum Tunneling in Complex Systems The Semiclassical Approach [Paperback]

In the last two decades remarkable progress has been made in understanding and describing tunneling processes in complex systems in terms of classical trajectories. This book introduces recent concepts and achievements. There is particular emphasis on a dynamical formulation and relations to specific systems in mesoscopic, molecular, atomic and nuclear physics.

In the last two decades remarkable progress has been made in understanding and describing tunneling processes in complex systems in terms of classical trajectories. This book introduces recent concepts and achievements with particular emphasis on a dynamical formulation and relations to specific systems in mesoscopic, molecular, atomic and nuclear physics. Advanced imaginary time techniques, e.g. for decay rates and tunnel splittings, are discussed in the first part. The second part covers current developments for wave-packet tunneling in real-time, and the third part describes thermodynamical and nonequilibrium approaches for barrier transmission in dissipative systems.

From the reviews:

This book is a must for anyone who wants to understand quantum tunneling in depth. & Starting from the old Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin analysis, the author rapidly moves to semiclassical initial value representations & and periodic orbit theories emanating from Gutzwillers famous work, which are used extensively to bridge the gap between classical and quantum mechanics. & Experimental examples are dispersed throughout the book. Special attention is given to fission and fusion, macroscopic quantum tunneling in Josephson junctions, tunneling in Bose condensates and the tunnells3