The production of electron-positron pairs occurs if a photon with high enough energy passes near a nucleus so that the energy of the photon is converted into particle mass, in accordance with the mass-energy equivalence, $$\gamma \rightarrow e^- + e^+ $$ Is there a similar process for the produ...

We have this well known case of ~4.2 MeV α-particle being emitted from the U-238 nucleus but the α-particle emitted from the Po-212 which has the energy of ~9MeV cannot penetrate it. This phenomenon is explained by the tunneling effect from quantum mechanics. Now, of the tunneling can happen f...