Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2014) 129: 5
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2014-14005-7

Regular Article

Average clock times for scattering through asymmetric barriers

¹ Department of Physics, Concordia College, 901 8th St. S., 56562, Moorhead, MN, USA
² Departamento de Matemática e Estatıstica, Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa, Avenida General Carlos Cavalcanti, Cep 84030-900, 4748, Ponta Grossa, PR, Brazil

^* e-mail: bfrentz@cord.edu

Received: 15 August 2013
Revised: 1 December 2013
Accepted: 11 December 2013
Published online: 20 January 2014

Abstract

The reflection and transmission Salecker-Wigner-Peres clock times averaged over the post-selected reflected and transmitted sub-ensembles, respectively, are investigated for the one-dimensional scattering of a localized wave packet through an asymmetric barrier. The dwell time averaged over the same post-selected sub-ensembles is also considered. The emergence of negative average reflection times is examined and we show that, while the average over the reflected sub-ensemble eliminates the negative peaks at resonance for the clock time, it still allows negative values for transparent barriers. The saturation of the average times with the barrier width (Hartman effect) is also addressed.