Tunneling through a singular potential barrier

Abstract

Quantum tunneling of a nonrelativistic particle through a singular potential barrier V is studied on the line. The Hamiltonian is a self-adjoint extension of the operator H1=−d2/dx2+V(x). If H1 is essentially self-adjoint on its natural domain, the tunneling is forbidden for a class of potentials that includes all semiclassically impenetrable barriers. If H1 is not essentially self-adjoint, the Friedrichs extension of H1 yields no tunneling for another class of potentials which again includes the semiclassically impenetrable ones. In general, the occurrence of tunneling is not excluded and depends on the self-adjoint extension we choose as the Hamiltonian of our problem. As an example, we evaluate the transmission coefficient for all self-adjoint extensions of the operator H1 referring to V(x)=gx−2 with 0<g< 3/4 .