Effects of barrier penetration on energy spectrum and wave functions in the path integral formalism

Abstract

We present a systematic approximation scheme for the non-relativistic Green function in the path integral representation which takes into account barrier penetration effects on the energy spectrum and wave functions for potentials having several minima. The method is applied to the cases of a symmetric potential with two minima and to a periodic potential. The energy spectrum is shown to agree with the usual WKB results. For the first mentioned case we also determine the wave functions in the classically allowed and forbidden regions from the residues of the Green function. They agree with those obtained in the standard WKB approximation.