INTERACTION TIMES IN QUANTUM SCATTERING - THE SOJOURN-TIME-OPERATOR APPROACH VERSUS THE FEYNMAN PATH-INTEGRAL APPROACH

A ready comparison of the two methods noted in the title is obscured b y the very different formalisms that they employ. Our sojourn-time app roach [Jaworski and Wardlaw, Phys. Rev. A 45, 292 (1992)] is based on a Hermitian sojourn-time operator in the framework of time-dependent s cattering theory whereas Sokolovski and co-workers [Sokolovski and Bas kin, Phys. Rev. A 36, 4604 (1987); Sokolovski and Connor, ibid. 42, 65 12 (1990)] have developed an approach based on the Feynman path-integr al formulation of quantum mechanics. By translating the path-integral approach into the language of wave functions and linear operators, we reveal the similarities of the two approaches and show that the result s for the interaction times are closely related, becoming equivalent i n the asymptotic limit.