https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-019-00084-1
Regular Article
Hartman effect from layered PT-symmetric system
1
Space Science Programme Office, Indian Space Research Organisation, Bangalore, 560094, India
2
Department of Physics, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221005, India
* e-mail: bhabani.mandal@gmail.com
** e-mail: bhabani@bhu.ac.in
Received:
2
July
2019
Accepted:
27
December
2019
Published online:
17
January
2020
The time taken by a wave packet to cross through a finite-layered PT-symmetric system is calculated by stationary phase method. We consider the PT-symmetric system of fix spatial length L consisting of N units of the potential system ‘
’ and ‘
’ of equal width ‘b’ such that 
. In the limit of large ‘b’, the tunneling time is found to be independent of L and therefore, the layered PT-symmetric system displays the Hartman effect. The interesting limit of 
such that L remains finite is investigated analytically. In this limit, the tunneling time matches with the time taken to cross an empty space of length L. The result of this limiting case also shows the consistency of phase space method of calculating the tunneling time, despite the existence of controversial Hartman effect. The reason of Hartman effect is unknown to present day; however, the other definitions of tunneling time that indicate a delay which depends upon the length of traversing region have been effectively ruled out by recent attosecond measurements.
© Società Italiana di Fisica (SIF) and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature, 2020
