THE ROLE OF THE FORERUNNER IN THE TUNNELING TIME DETERMINATION

The problem of the tunneling time is reconsidered in relation to a microwave simulation experiment, elsewhere described. The results can be interpreted on the basis of an improved procedure already proposed by Stevens and based on the Sommerfeld-Brillouin method for determining the signal velocity in a dispersive medium. We find that for tunneling processes a decisive role is played by the signal-forerunner and the resulting times are in qualitative agreement with the predictions of other quantum mechanical models.