Tunneling in two-dimensional systems using a higher-order Herman–Kluk approximation

A principal weakness of the Herman-Kluk (HK) semiclassical approximation is its failure to provide a reliably accurate description of tunneling between different classically allowed regions. It was previously shown that semiclassical corrections significantly improve the HK treatment of tunneling for the particular case of the one-dimensional Eckart system. Calculations presented here demonstrate that the lowest-order correction also substantially improves the HK description of tunneling across barriers in two-dimensional systems. Numerical convergence issues either do not arise or are easily overcome, so that the calculations require only a moderate number of ordinary, real, classical trajectories.