Tempi di Tunnelling (Tunneling Times)

TL;DR

This review critically examines various definitions of tunnelling times in quantum mechanics, explores their equivalence with photon tunnelling, and discusses experimental evidence of superluminal evanescent wave propagation.

Contribution

It provides a detailed comparison of multiple tunnelling time definitions and analyzes their implications for superluminal phenomena and experimental observations.

Findings

Different tunnelling time definitions show varying degrees of agreement.

Quantum tunnelling and photon tunnelling are closely related phenomena.

Experimental data support the existence of superluminal evanescent wave propagation.

Abstract

In this review (in Italian) we critically and detaily examine various definitions existing in the literature for the tunnelling times: namely, the phase-time; the centroid-based times; the Buttiker and Landauer times; the Larmor times; the complex (path-integral and Bohm) times; the dwell time, and the generalized (Olkhovsky and Recami) dwell time, with some numerical evaluations. Then, we pass to examine the equivalence between quantum tunnelling and "photon tunnelling" (evanescent waves propagation), with particular attention to tunnellings with Superluminal group-velocities ("Hartman effect"). At last, the main (Cologne, Berkeley, Florence, Vienna) experimental data about Superluminal evanescent wave propagation are briefly reviewed.