# Has many-body tunneling at the level of nuclei been studied?

In a recent paper, the authors stress the difference between single-body tunneling and many-body tunneling (at the atomic level): "In contrast to the well-studied incoherent single-particle tunnelling, our understanding of many-body tunnelling is still in its infancy." https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3225

When considering tunneling at the nuclear level such as in the case of alpha emission or nuclear fusion, the approach typically employed involves solving the wave equation for a particle that tunnels through a potential barrier. To do that, techniques like the WKB approximation are used (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling#The_WKB_approximation). However, it seems that the underlying assumption here is that the tunneling process is single-particle tunneling.

In contrast, has there been any treatment of many-body tunneling at the nuclear level?

• A process you might look at: two-proton radioactivity, first observed about a decade ago in nuclei near the proton drip line. – rob Jul 27 '19 at 0:24
• – anna v Jul 27 '19 at 5:02