Electromagnetic barrier penetration in a dispersive medium: Tunneling times and dispersion relations

Abstract

We consider a scattering process inside a dispersive and absorptive medium, and derive an analytical expression for the scattering-time parameter that characterizes the duration of this process. We consider a microwave wave packet that scatters from a dielectric inhomogeneity inside an otherwise homogeneous waveguide. The waveguide is filled with a dielectric medium with a finite inhomogeneity region in the direction of the wave-packet propagation. The permittivity of the entire medium is described by a complex function of the frequency. Hence both absorption and dispersion affect the propagation of the wave packet. We define the scattering-time parameter to be the difference in the ``average arrival time'' between the free and actual propagation. We show that this time difference (in the limit of a narrow-band wave packet) is given by a linear combination of the real and imaginary parts of the ``complex tunneling time.'' In the special case where there is no dissipation or attenuation outside the scatterer, we recover the well-known result that the scattering-time parameter is identical to the real part of the complex tunneling time. The contribution of the imaginary part of the complex tunneling time to the scattering-time parameter can, therefore, be attributed to absorption and attenuation outside the scatterer. We further show that the real and imaginary-time parameters satisfy dispersion relations. Causality in this process is briefly discussed.