  Scattering from a compound barrier, one composed of a number of distinct
non-overlapping sub-barriers, has a number of interesting and subtle
mathematical features. If one is scattering classical particles, where the wave
aspects of the particle can be ignored, the transmission probability of the
compound barrier is simply given by the product of the transmission
probabilities of the individual sub-barriers. In contrast if one is scattering
waves (whether we are dealing with either purely classical waves or quantum
Schrodinger wavefunctions) each sub-barrier contributes phase information (as
well as a transmission probability), and these phases can lead to either
constructive or destructive interference, with the transmission probability
oscillating between nontrivial upper and lower bounds. In this article we shall
study these upper and lower bounds in some detail, and also derive bounds on
the closely related process of quantum excitation (particle production) via
parametric resonance.
