Transient interference of transmission and incidence - art. no. 012710

Due to a transient quantum interference during a wave packet collision with a potential barrier, a particular momentum, that depends on the potential parameters, but is close to the initial average momentum, becomes suppresse d. The hole left pushes the momentum distribution outwards leading to a sig nificant constructive enhancement of lower and higher moments. This is expl ained in the momentum complex-plane language in terms of a saddle point and two contiguous ''structural'' poles, which are not associated with resonan ces but with incident and transmitted components of the wave function.