Coulomb field correction due to virtual e+e− production in heavy ion collisions*

The correction to the Coulomb energy due to virtual production of e+e− pairs, which is on the order of one percent of the Coulomb energy at nuclear scales, is discussed. The effects of including a pair-production term in the semi-empirical mass formula and the correction to the Coulomb barrier for a handful of nuclear collisions using the Bass and Coulomb potentials are studied. With an eye toward future work using Constrained Molecular Dynamics (CoMD) model, we also calculate the correction to the Coulomb energy and force between protons after folding with a Gaussian spatial distribution.