Time dependent semiclassical tunneling through one dimensional barriers using only real valued trajectories

The time independent semiclassical treatment of barrier tunneling has been understood for a very long time. Several semiclassical approaches to time dependent tunneling through barriers have also been presented. These typically involve trajectories for which the position variable is a complex function of time. In this paper, a method is presented that uses only real valued trajectories, thus avoiding the complications that can arise when complex trajectories are employed. This is accomplished by expressing the time dependent wave packet as an integration over momentum. The action function in the exponent in this expression is expanded to second order in the momentum. The expansion is around the momentum, p0(*) , at which the derivative of the real part of the action is zero. The resulting Gaussian integral is then taken. The stationary phase approximation requires that the derivative of the full action is zero at the expansion point, and this leads to a complex initial momentum and complex tunneling trajectories. The "pseudo-stationary phase" approximation employed in this work results in real values for the initial momentum and real valued trajectories. The transmission probabilities obtained are found to be in good agreement with exact quantum results.