Propagation of wave packets through resonant quantum systems

We use a previously proposed modified saddle point method to describe the tunneling of a rectangular wave packet through a resonant quantum system. We calculate the shape of the wave packet obtained at the quantum system output analytically for different values of the level width. The result of propagation is a wave packet that is the superposition of complementary error functions. Comparing the result with the exact numerical solution obtained without using any asymptotic methods shows a rather good coincidence. We study the propagation of Gaussian and rectangular wave packets in detail for large values of the resonance level width. © 2011 Pleiades Publishing, Ltd.