  The fusion of two interacting heavy ions traditionally has been interpreted
in terms of the penetration of the projectile into the target. Observed rates
well below the Coulomb barrier are considerably lower than estimates obtained
from penetration factors. One approach in the analysis of the data invokes
coupling to non-elastic channels in the scattering as the source of the
depletion. Another is to analyze those data in terms of tunneling in
semi-classical models, with the observed depletion being taken as evidence of a
``friction'' under the barrier. A complementary approach is to consider such
tunneling in terms of a fully quantal model. We investigate tunneling with both
one-dimensional and three-dimensional models in a fully quantal approach to
investigate possible sources for such a friction. We find that the observed
phenomenon may not be explained by friction. However, we find that under
certain conditions tunneling may be enhanced or diminished by up to 50%, which
finds analogy with observation, without the invocation of a friction under the
barrier.
