Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-a-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2019/paper-1/section-a/3/solution

Inside the barrier, the stationary Schrödinger equation gives an exponentially decaying wavefunction with inverse penetration length
The amplitude falls approximately as , so the leading exponential estimate for the transmission probability is
For comparison, wavefunction matching at a finite potential step at both edges gives the rectangular-barrier tunnelling probability
The difference is the interface prefactor: for an opaque barrier it is . Both give a transmission of order ; the first is the requested exponential estimate.

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