Reply to Comment on "Phase-space consideration on barrier transmission in a time-dependent variational approach with superposed wave packets"

TL;DR

This paper critically examines recent debates on quantum tunneling simulation methods, emphasizing the importance of wave packet interference in superposed states to clarify previous conflicting conclusions.

Contribution

It clarifies the role of wave packet interference in time-dependent variational approaches and addresses misconceptions in recent discussions on quantum tunneling simulation.

Findings

Wave packet interference is crucial in superposed states.

Misinterpretations in recent debates are clarified.

The importance of coherence in tunneling simulations is highlighted.

Abstract

In the paper by Hasegawa, Hagino and Tanimura (HHT) [Phys. Lett. B 808 (2020) 135693, arXiv:2006.06944], they concluded that quantum tunneling was simulated by a time-dependent generator coordinate method (TDGCM). In contrast, difficulties of TDGCM in describing quantum tunneling were pointed out by Ono in the paper [Phys. Lett. B 826 (2022) 136931, arXiv:2201.02966]. Recently, HHT submitted a comment [arXiv:2202.00513v1], by which they appear to give some counterarguments to Ono's paper. Here I examine their arguments, reviewing the main points of Ono's paper. The confusion in HHT's arguments may be mostly resolved by recognizing how the wave packets interfere with each other when they are coherently superposed.