Semiclassical description of tunneling in scattering with multiple degreesof freedom - art. no. 076004

We describe a computational investigation of tunneling at finite energy in a weakly coupled quantum mechanical system with two degrees of freedom. We compare a full quantum mechanical analysis to the results obtained by makin g use of a semiclassical technique developed in the context of instanton-li ke transitions in quantum field theory. This latter technique is based on a n analytic continuation of the degrees of freedom into a complex phase spac e and the simultaneous analytic continuation of the equations of motion int o the complex time plane. [S0556-2821(99)00719-5].