The calculation of permeabilities for one-dimensional barriers

Abstract

This chapter describes the methods used for calculating permeabilities (or transmission coefficients) for a number of model situations. We shall confine our attention to the case in which the energy of the system has a single known value, leaving until Chapter 3 the problem of relating these results to the situation in chemical reactions, in which a range of energies will normally be involved. The whole treatment depends upon obtaining and interpreting solutions of the Schrödinger wave equation, for which the necessary principles and techniques are given in numerous textbooks on quantum mechanics (that by Landau and Lifshitz [42] is particularly useful in the present context). References will be given sparingly, and results often stated without a full derivation, though some of the less accessible arguments are given in more detail in the Appendices.