Alpha particle qualitative

Examples of tunneling in physical phenomena occur in the spontaneous emission of an alpha particle by a nucleus, oxidation-reduction reactions, electrode reactions, and the umbrella inversion of the ammonia molecule. For these cases, the potential is not as simple as the one used here, but must be selected to approximate as closely as possible the actual potential. However, the basic qualitative results of the treatment here serve to explain the general concept of tunneling. 

However, some of the conditions in the alpha ion source do differ significantly from those in conventional ion-molecule sources. The most important difference is caused by the absence of an electric field and the mode of sampling. Positive and negative particles are carried out by mass flow. Therefore it is necessary to understand the reaction and sampling conditions at least qualitatively. For this reason we are devoting this section to a description of the conditions and a discussion of some experiments which were done specifically to obtain a better understanding of the sample prehistory. 

Low-range instruments (these normally have a handheld probe) usually detect alpha or beta particles and gamma radiation. These instruments are used to detect contamination (qualitative) and are not useful to measure higher radiation readings. 

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