Semiclassical theory of quantum tunneling in multidimensional systems

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Abstract
A semiclassical method is applied to the problem of quantum tunneling in the presence of internal oscillator degrees of freedom. Comparison with coupled channel calculations verifies the accuracy of the semi-classical method. Providing the coupling has a physically reasonable form factor, the coupling produces an enhancement in the tunneling rate. The enhancement becomes larger when the tunneling degree of freedom couples with a harmonic oscillator with lower frequency. The semiclassical method is found to be quite useful in situations where the coupled channel method becomes numerically difficult.