Effects of the generalised uncertainty principle on quantum tunnelling

Abstract

In a previous paper (Blado et al 2014 Eur. J. Phys. 35 065011), we showed that quantum gravity effects can be discussed with only a background in non-relativistic quantum mechanics at the undergraduate level by looking at the effect of the generalised uncertainty principle (GUP) on the finite and infinite square wells. In this paper, we derive the GUP corrections to the tunnelling probability of simple quantum mechanical systems which are accessible to undergraduates (alpha decay, simple models of quantum cosmogenesis and gravitational tunnelling radiation) and which employ the WKB approximation, a topic discussed in undergraduate quantum mechanics classes. It is shown that the GUP correction increases the tunnelling probability in each of the examples discussed.