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  • Define and discuss tunneling.
  • Define potential barrier.
  • Explain quantum tunneling.

Protons and neutrons are bound inside nuclei, that means energy must be supplied to break them away. The situation is analogous to a marble in a bowl that can roll around but lacks the energy to get over the rim. It is bound inside the bowl (see [link] ). If the marble could get over the rim, it would gain kinetic energy by rolling down outside. However classically, if the marble does not have enough kinetic energy to get over the rim, it remains forever trapped in its well.

The figure shows a marble rolling in a semicircular bowl at the top of a volcano. A dashed line is shown just below the top of the bowl indicating maximum distance the marble can travel. A tunnel is shown on one side of the top of the volcano through which the marble can roll downhill.
The marble in this semicircular bowl at the top of a volcano has enough kinetic energy to get to the altitude of the dashed line, but not enough to get over the rim, so that it is trapped forever. If it could find a tunnel through the barrier, it would escape, roll downhill, and gain kinetic energy.

In a nucleus, the attractive nuclear potential is analogous to the bowl at the top of a volcano (where the “volcano” refers only to the shape). Protons and neutrons have kinetic energy, but it is about 8 MeV less than that needed to get out (see [link] ). That is, they are bound by an average of 8 MeV per nucleon. The slope of the hill outside the bowl is analogous to the repulsive Coulomb potential for a nucleus, such as for an α particle outside a positive nucleus. In α decay, two protons and two neutrons spontaneously break away as a 4 He size 12{"" lSup { size 8{4} } "He"} {} unit. Yet the protons and neutrons do not have enough kinetic energy to get over the rim. So how does the α size 12{α} {} particle get out?

The image shows potential energy curve. The curve starts from negative Y axis to positive Y axis and alpha particles are shown trapped inside the nucleus due to attractive nuclear force. The alpha particles outside the range of nuclear force experience the repulsive Coulomb force which keeps them outside the nucleus.
Nucleons within an atomic nucleus are bound or trapped by the attractive nuclear force, as shown in this simplified potential energy curve. An α size 12{α} {} particle outside the range of the nuclear force feels the repulsive Coulomb force. The α size 12{α} {} particle inside the nucleus does not have enough kinetic energy to get over the rim, yet it does manage to get out by quantum mechanical tunneling.

The answer was supplied in 1928 by the Russian physicist George Gamow (1904–1968). The α size 12{α} {} particle tunnels through a region of space it is forbidden to be in, and it comes out of the side of the nucleus. Like an electron making a transition between orbits around an atom, it travels from one point to another without ever having been in between. [link] indicates how this works. The wave function of a quantum mechanical particle varies smoothly, going from within an atomic nucleus (on one side of a potential energy barrier) to outside the nucleus (on the other side of the potential energy barrier). Inside the barrier, the wave function does not become zero but decreases exponentially, and we do not observe the particle inside the barrier. The probability of finding a particle is related to the square of its wave function, and so there is a small probability of finding the particle outside the barrier, which implies that the particle can tunnel through the barrier. This process is called barrier penetration    or quantum mechanical tunneling    . This concept was developed in theory by J. Robert Oppenheimer (who led the development of the first nuclear bombs during World War II) and was used by Gamow and others to describe α size 12{α} {} decay.

Practice Key Terms 3

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Source:  OpenStax, Physics 101. OpenStax CNX. Jan 07, 2013 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11479/1.1
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