Role of momentum in the generator-coordinate method applied to barrier penetration

Nuclear fission at barrier-top energies is conventionally modeled by a one-dimensional Schrödinger equation applied to internal fission channels, but that treatment is hard to justify in the configuration-interaction approach to nuclear Hamiltonians. Here we show that inclusion of states of finite momentum by the Generator Coordinate Method (GCM) considerably extends the range of energies at which GCM-based Hamiltonians could reproduce the Schrödinger treatment. The transmission probabilities for crossing the barrier are calculated by a discrete version of Kohn’s variational method, which may also be useful for other systems of interacting fermions.