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Tunneling of a composite particle: Eects of intrinsic structure
C.A. Bertulani
1
, V.V. Flambaum
2
, and V.G. Zelevinsky
3
1
Department of Physics, Texas A&M University-Commerce, Commerce, TX 75429, USA
2
School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia
3
National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory and
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1321, USA
(Dated: February 5, 2008)
We consider simple models of tunneling of an object with intrinsic degrees of freedom. This
important problem was not extensively studied until now, in spite of numerous applications in
various areas of physics and astrophysics. We show possibilities of enhancement for the probability
of tunneling due to the presence of intrinsic degrees of freedom split by weak external elds or by
polarizability of the slow composite object.
PACS numbers: 03.65.Xp,03.75.Lm,24.10.-i
Quantum tunneling is a subject of constantly renewed interest, both experimentally and theoretically. The standard
textbook approach describes the tunneling process for a point-like particle in an external static potential. Chemical
and nuclear subbarrier reactions [1], especially in astrophysical conditions, as a rule, involve complex objects with
their intrinsic degrees of freedom. As stated in Ref. [2], Although a number of theoretical works have studied
tunneling phenomena in various situations, quantum tunneling of a composite particle, in which the particle itself
has an internal structure, has yet to be claried. There are experimental data [3, 4] indicating that at low energies
the penetration probability for loosely bound systems, such as the deuteron, can noticeably exceed the conventional
estimates.
The problems of tunneling and reection of a composite particle were discussed recently with the help of various
models [5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]. It was stressed that new, usually ignored, eects are important for nuclear fusion and
ssion, nucleosynthesis in stars, molecular processes, transport phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors,
both in quasi-one-dimensional and three-dimensional systems. The resonant tunneling associated with the intrinsic
excitation, nite size eects, polarizability of tunneling objects, evanescent modes near the barrier, real [12, 13]
and virtual [14] radiation processes are the examples of interesting new physics. Below we consider simple models
which illustrate how hidden degrees of freedom can show up in the process of tunneling leading to a considerable
enhancement of the probability of this process.
Let the tunneling particle possess two degenerate intrinsic states and the incident wave comes to the barrier in
a pure state up (it is convenient to use the spin-1/2 language with respect to the z-representation). We assume
one-dimensional motion with the simplest rectangular potential barrier of height U
0
located at 0 < x < a. At
low energy E U
0
, when the imaginary action
0
a = [2m(U
0
E)]
1/2
a is very large, the transmission coecient
T
0
exp(2
0
a) is exponentially small. This probability can be exponentially enhanced by a weak magnetic eld
applied in the area of the barrier. We assume that the interaction of this eld with the particle is h
x
, where h is
proportional to the transverse magnetic eld.
Indeed, this eld creates the down spin component and splits the states inside the barrier according to the value of

x
. In the z-representation the regions x 0 and x a acquire the down component in the reected and transmitted
waves,

1
(x) =
_
Ae
ikx
+Be
ikx
B

e
ikx
_
, x 0, (1)
and

3
(x) =
_
F
F

_
e
ik(xa)
, x a. (2)
Inside the barrier the two tunneling components have slightly dierent imaginary momenta, = [2m(U
0
E) h]
1/2
and

= [2m(U
0
E) +h]
1/2
. Correspondingly, the spinor wave function under the barrier is given by

2
(x) =
_
Ce
x
+C

x
+De
x
+D

x
Ce
x
C

x
+De
x
D

x
_
, 0 < x < a. (3)
Performing the matching of the wave function, we nd the transmission coecients: for spin up
T
+
= 4
| +

|
2
||
2
|

|
2
, (4)
2
FIG. 1: Quantum tunneling of a composite particle through a barrier. The barrier might be visible by only one of the particles,
e.g. the neutron within a deuteron does not see a Coulomb barrier due to presence of another nucleus.
and for spin down (initially not present)
T

= 4
|

|
2
||
2
|

|
2
, (5)
where
() =
_
1
ik

_
_
1

ik
_
e
a
+
_
1 +
ik

_
_
1 +

ik
_
e
a
, (6)
and

= (

). Assuming small penetrability, a 1,

a 1, and ignoring exponentially small terms, we obtain

T

= 4k
2
|

( ik)
2
e

a
(

ik)
2
e
a
|
2
(
2
+k
2
)
2
(
2
+k
2
)
2
. (7)
If, in addition, the splitting is large enough and e

a
e
a
,
T
+
T

=
4k
2

2
(
2
+k
2
)
2
e
2a
. (8)
This should be compared with the transmission without splitting,
T
0
=
16k
2

2
0
(
2
0
+k
2
)
2
e
20a
. (9)
This is valid if the splitting =
0
is large enough in the exponents, 2a 1,
T

T
0

1
4
e
2a
, (10)
that allows one to neglect the exponents e

a
. The validity condition, therefore, is that not only
0
a 1 but, much
more strongly, a 1, which is hard to satisfy with electrons and realistic magnetic elds in the laboratory:
|h|
2(U
0
E)

1

0
a
(11)
for an electron with a = 10 nm, U
0
E = 1 eV, requires
0
a 50, so that it should be |h|/(U
0
E) > 1/25,
or |h| > 0.04 eV. However, a similar situation can be realized in the case of a system with the ground state as a
combination of two congurations slightly split by their coupling; this splitting plays the role of the magnetic eld.
There is no need for an external magnetic eld if there exists another intrinsic state of the tunneling object that
would be able to tunnel with a larger probability. In distinction to the cases of resonant tunneling discussed in the
3
literature the situation is possible when the composite particle energetically cannot be transferred to the state with
favorable conditions for tunneling. However, even the virtual admixture of such an intermediate state can increase
penetrability. In such a case outside of the barrier the trace of the evanescent state can exist only in the vicinity
of the barrier. Similar virtual states emerge with necessity in reection of a composite particle [6] as well as in the
situation when only one of the constituents interacts with the barrier while the rest of the constituents do not feel
it [15, 16, 17]. This happens for example at the Coulomb barrier for a system that contains neutral and charged
constituents (see gure 1).
Next we briey consider the case when the excited intrinsic state with energy E

> E can virtually transfer

excitation into translational energy (the system then is still under the barrier). The two-component wave function
with the low component describing the new intrinsic state can be written in a form similar to eqs. (1-3), with simple
substitutions
B

e
ikx
B

e
x
, F

e
ik(xa)
F

e
(xa)
, (12)
where = [2m(E

E)]
1/2
gives the decay of the virtual wave function in free space. The wave function inside the
barrier still keeps the form (3) with

now describing the imaginary momentum of the virtual state.

The transmission coecient here is found as
T = 16k
2
_
(

+)
2
e
a
+

( +)
2
e

a
(2

+( +

))
2
+k
2
( +

+ 2)
2
_
2
, (13)
where, analogously to eq. (7) we neglect exponentially small terms. This expression has a simple -independent limit
for large excitation energy, ,

, which, under the assumption exp(

a) exp(a), gives
T
_
4k

( +

)
2
+ 4k
2
_
2
e
2

a
. (14)
This limiting result corresponds to the sudden breakup of the incident wave function by the edge of the barrier that is
equivalent to its instantaneous expansion into two components one of which has a strong enhancement of the tunneling
probability.
In a more realistic description, the intrinsic wave function of the slow composite particle will change smoothly along
its path. We consider a one-dimensional motion of the complex of two particles at positions (x, y) with masses m
x
and m
y
coupled by their interaction V (x y) and slowly moving in an external potential, U,
H =
p
2
x
2m
x
+
p
2
y
2m
y
+V (x y) +U
x
(x) +U
y
(y), (15)
where we allow the external potential U to act dierently on the constituents. Introducing the center-of-mass co-
ordinate R, relative coordinate r, and corresponding masses M and (reduced mass), we come to the stationary
Schrodinger equation
_

2
2M

2
R
2


2
2

2
r
2
+V (r) +U
x
_
R +
rm
y
M
_
+U
y
_
R
rm
y
M
_
E
_
(R, r) = 0. (16)
At low energy we can use an adiabatic ansatz
(R, r) = (R)(r; R), (17)
where the internal function (r; R) describing the smooth evolution of relative motion parametrically depends on the
slow global variable R and satises the instantaneous equation
_

2
2

2
r
2
+V (r) +U
x
_
R +
rm
y
M
_
+U
y
_
R
rm
y
M
_
(R)
_
(r; R) = 0. (18)
A loosely bound state is created by the potential V (r) far away from the barrier. As the motion in the direction of
the barrier proceeds and the wings of the relative wave function propagate in the region of the potentials U, this wave
function is gradually evolving along with its energy eigenvalue (R). It was pointed out in [10] that the polarizability
of the tunneling system by the eld of the target may increase the penetration probability.
Multiplying eq. (16) by

(r; R), integrating out the intrinsic variable r and introducing new functions
| = N(R), |/R = N(R)(R), |
2
/R
2
= N(R)(R), (19)
4
-8 -4 0 4 8
R [fm]
0
2
4
6
U
(
R
)


[
M
e
V
]
U(R)
U(R)
~
FIG. 2: The eective potential
e
U(R) for the deuteron, as obtained from eq. 23. The dashed line represents the rectangular
potential barrier.
the resulting equation for (R) becomes

+ 2(R)

+(R) +
2M

2
[E (R)] = 0, (20)
where primes label the derivatives with respect to R. Dening the new function u(R),
(R) = u(R)e

R
(R) dR
, (21)
we reduce the problem to the standard Schrodinger equation,
u

+
2M

2
[E

U(R)]u = 0 (22)
with the eective potential

UR = (R) E
0
+

2
2M
[
2
(R) +

(R) (R)]. (23)

Here the energy scale is chosen in such a way that far from the barrier, R , energy (R) coincide with the intrinsic
binding energy E
0
. Note that the solution of eq. 18 is not normalized. But eq. 17 is, i.e.
_
N(R)(R) is normalized
to one.
The closeness of the continuum level would be dangerous in the form of adiabatic perturbation theory where small
denominators can arise. But in the form of a dierential equation, as formulated above, we do not throw away
non-adiabatic eects. They are important and they make the wave function to evolve. Of course, real dissociation
is impossible at low energy because of energy conservation. When the binding energy is small, the particles are still
correlated and can get together after the barrier. (Even in the continuum their wave function would not be the
product of two independent plane waves, they are still correlated because of the interaction between them.) Our
model accounts for these features.
As an application of this approach, we consider the transmission of a composite particle through a rectangular
barrier, Fig. 1, a problem discussed for a molecule in the context of condensed matter physics in [2, 6]. For nuclear
applications we assume the deuteron model, when the rectangular potential of Fig. 1 acts on one constituent
(proton) only, U
x
= U
p
, while its partner, a neutron, is not inuenced by the barrier, U
y
= 0. The intrinsic
5
0 5 10 15 20 25
E [MeV]
0
0.4
0.8
1.2
T
r
a
n
s
m
i
t
t
a
n
c
e
T
T
eff
FIG. 3: Transmission probability for a deuteron incident on a rectangular barrier (dashed-line) and on an eective potential
barrier (solid line). Potential and energy parameters are given in the text.
potential V (r) is also taken as a rectangular well with parameters of depth V
0
= 11.4 MeV and width r
0
= 2 fm
reproducing the deuteron binding energy E
0
= 2.225 MeV. The choice of the barrier parameters, U
0
= 5.5 MeV
and a = r
0
= 2 fm, implies that at R = 0 the intrinsic well exactly coincides with the barrier and the deuteron is
practically unbound. The masses used to produce the results in g. 2 are M = 2m
N
and = m
N
/2, where m
N
= 939
MeV is the free nucleon mass.
The numerically calculated eective potential (23) is shown in Fig. 2 by a solid line. It is obvious that the barrier
transmission problem is very dierent from that for penetration through the original potential U(R), a dashed line.
At R = 0 the deuteron is barely bound with binding energy (0) = 0.01 MeV; the non-adiabatic terms [the brackets
in eq. (23)] are very small at R = 0, so that the height of the eective potential here is only

U(0) 2.21 MeV, as
seen in Fig. 2. For a deeper intrinsic potential V (r), the height

U(0) would be closer to the top of the barrier but the
smearing eect of weak deuteron binding is signicant.
The Schrodinger equation (22) with the symmetric eective potential

U(R) allows, at given energy E, for the
solutions with denite parity, u

. The solution of the transmission problem given by the incident wave from the left
is their linear combination. We nd u
+
and u

by a numerical procedure starting from the center of the barrier,

R = 0, with
u
+
(0) = 1, u

+
(0) = 1, u

(0) = 0, u

(0) = 1, (24)
and using an arbitrary normalization of these basic solutions. Then we can compute the dimensionless logarithmic
derivatives at a remote point R = R
0
, where

U(R
0
) is negligible,

= R
0
u

(R
0
)
u

(R
0
)
. (25)
The logarithmic derivatives at the mirror point R = R
0
are

.
Now we can perform the matching at R = R
0
for the scattering (transmission) problem with energy E =
2
k
2
/2M,
where the wave function is
u(R) =
_
_
_
e
ikR
+Be
ikR
, < R R
0
,
C
+
u
+
(R) +C

(R), R
0
R R
0
,
Fe
ikR
, R
0
R < .
(26)
6
This gives the reection and transmission amplitudes,
B =
1
2
_

+
+iq

+
iq
+

+iq

iq
_
e
2iq
, F =
1
2
_

+
+iq

+
iq

+iq

iq
_
e
2iq
, (27)
where q = kR
0
. The transmission probability is given by
T =
q
2
(
+

)
2
(q
2
+
2
+
)(q
2
+
2

)
. (28)
Such a calculation contains a continuous transition to global energy exceeding the height of the eective barrier.
However, then one need to take into account the opening of the breakup channels.
The results are shown in Fig. 3 in comparison with the simple tunneling calculation (9) that did not take into
account the gradual adjustment of the internal wave function. A considerable enhancement of the tunneling probability
is evident.
Of course this is just a simple model that does not pretend to give a realistic quantitative description of tunneling
for a composite object. However, we believe that it is worthwhile to point out that there exist quantum-mechanical
eects which are not discussed in textbooks and which could be seen even in such a simplied example. Moreover,
this simple description allows us to clearly demonstrate physics of the process not overshadowed by cumbersome
computations.
We use a trial wave function that corresponds to slow motion of the object as a whole at very low energy when
dissociation channels are forbidden. In the framework of this variational approach we solve the problem exactly
taking into account non-adiabatic corrections (derivatives of the function describing slow motion) which are usually
neglected in a standard Born-Oppenheimer approximation in molecular or solid state physics. This leads to the
dierential Schroedinger-type equation that is solved exactly (see also [18]).
In conclusion, we would like to stress that tunneling of composite objects is an important topic, regrettably not
studied in detail. Numerous applications to nuclear, atomic, molecular and condensed matter physics,as well as to
astrophysical reactions, make the progress in understanding this problem absolutely necessary.
Acknowledgments
This work was partially supported by the NSF grant PHY-0555366 and the U.S. Department of Energy under
contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725, and DE-FC02-07ER41457 (UNEDF, SciDAC-2).
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