new barrier penetration formula and its application to α-decay half-lives

Starting from the WKB approximation, a new barrier penetration formula is proposed for poten- tial barriers containing a long-range Coulomb interaction. This formula is especially proper for the barrier penetration with penetration energy much lower than the Coulomb barrier. The penetra- bilities calculated from the new formula agree well with the results from the WKB method. As a first attempt, this new formula is used to evaluate α decay half-lives of atomic nuclei and a good agreement with the experiment is obtained.