Tunneling of two interacting electrons in a quantum wire

A model calculation is reported for the tunneling probability of one as well as two interacting electrons from a quantum well within a narrow channel. We discuss the cases when the two electrons are spin polarized or unpolarized by transforming the system to a noninteracting one with the use of quantal density functional theory to obtain an effective single-particle confining potential. A semiclassical approach is used to obtain the tunneling probability from this effective potential. The calculation is motivated by recent measurements of the conductance of an electron gas in a narrow channel but is not meant to explain the anomalous behavior that has been reported since, for example, we deal with a simplified two-level system. Numerical results for the tunneling probability are presented.