TRAVERSAL TIMES FOR RECTANGULAR BARRIERS WITHIN BOHM CAUSAL INTERPRETATION OF QUANTUM-MECHANICS

In sharp contrast to the conventional interpretation of quantum mechanics, Bohm's causal or trajectory interpretation provides a unique, well-defined, and unambiguous prescription for calculating the average time spent by a transmitted particle inside a one-dimensional barrier. Numerical results for such traversal times are presented for the special case of a particle described initially by a minimum-uncertainty-product wavepacket incident on a rectangular barrier. These are very different from the corresponding Larmor clock or time-modulated barrier results unless the transition probability is close to unity. © 1990.