CONNECTION BETWEEN COMPLEX INTERACTION TIMES AND THE SOJOURN-TIME OPERATOR

Numerous studies of one-dimensional scattering systems have failed to provide a satisfactory theory for tunneling times. Although there is some support for the idea that such interaction times should be complex, the physical meaning of complex interaction times has defied explanation. Here we demonstrate an explicit relation between several proposed complex times and a Hermitian sojourn-time operator. We have previously shown that this operator describes the effect of a perturbation of the scattering system on observable quantities.