Superluminal processes and signal velocity in tunneling simulation

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that microwave simulation is a powerful method for studying tunneling processes and in particular tunneling time. A semiclassical interpretation, based on the telegrapher's equation, turned out to be in quite good agreement with the predictions of quantum-mechanical models but it works well also in connection with superluminal behaviours recently evidenced. The aim of this work is to demonstrate how evanescent waves account for superluminal processes: the plausibility of the results is discussed on the basis of signal analysis along the lines of the Sommerfeld-Brillouin criterion, as well as in the framework of special relativity.