  The mechanism of superluminal traversal time through a potential well or
potential barrier is investigated from the viewpoint of interference between
multiple finite wave packets, due to the multiple reflections inside the well
or barrier. In the case of potential-well traveling that is classically
allowed, each of the successively transmitted constituents is delayed by a
subluminal time. When the thickness of the well is much smaller in comparision
with a characteristic length of the incident wave packet, the reshaped wave
packet in transmission maintains the profile of the incident wave packet. In
the case of potential-barrier tunneling that is classically forbidden, though
each of the successively transmitted constituents is delayed by a time that is
independent of the barrier thickness, the interference between multiple
transmitted constituents explains the barrier-thickness dependence of the
traversal time for thin barriers and its barrier-thickness independence for
thick barriers. This manifests the nature of Hartman effect.
