5.5    "QUANTUM TUNNELING"

It have been verified that statistically some particles trespass potentials that at a first approach they would not be able. Schrodinger’s theory about the uncertainty of the state of a particle is currently taken to explain this phenomenon resulting in the "quantum tunneling" interpretation.

As stated at the end of Section 3.4 in the new theories there are no “waves” associated to “matter” and so Schrodinger’s theory does not apply.

Another interpretation is possible for the phenomenon of crossing potential barriers.

The real state of electrons in an atom cannot be perfectly determined due to the "thermal noise" phenomenon (well known in electronics). In normal conditions at a given temperature there are a constant average number of photons with diverse energies received and emitted by the atoms of any material in a dynamical equilibrium such that the average level of the total energy of the atom is maintained constant. Each electron will statistically interact with photons reaching higher energy levels, going after to lower levels while emitting new photons, interacting again with other photons and successively changing its state. Eventually an electron can gain enough energy to get out of the atom but as its original state is unknown and the energy of the interacting photon is also unknown it will escape with an unknown kinetic energy. Some of these electrons will have enough energy to pass some barrier that the average electrons do not pass.