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Q:
Does a tunneling event create pairs of oppositely charged particles just like pair production? I guess I really just don't see the difference.
- Laura (age 17)
Buffalo
A:
Tunneling is the name given to the quantum mechanical phenomenon of a particle overcoming a potential barrier. Pair production is the process of creating a particle-antiparticle pair. Both processes conserve charge. An example of non pair producing tunneling is the decay of certain nuclei by alpha particle emission such as U
238 --> Th
234 + He
2. Both charge and energy are conserved but no pairs are produced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_decayAn example of a pair production process is γ + Pb --> Pb + e
- + e
+ where the γ is a high energy photon.
LeeH
(published on 11/15/2009)
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