  The properties of the quantum electrodynamic (QED) vacuum in general, and of
the nuclear vacuum (ground) state in particular are determined by virtual
processes implying the excitation of a photon and of an electron--positron pair
in the first case and of, for example, the excitation of a collective
quadrupole surface vibration and a particle--hole pair in the nuclear case.
Signals of these processes can be detected in the laboratory in terms of what
can be considered a nuclear analogue of Hawking radiation. An analogy which
extends to other physical processes involving QED vacuum fluctuations like the
Lamb shift, pair creation by $\gamma-$rays, van der Waals forces and the
Casimir effect, to the extent that one concentrates on the eventual outcome
resulting by forcing a virtual process to become real, and not on the role of
the black hole role in defining the event horizon. In the nuclear case, the
role of this event is taken over at a microscopic, fully quantum mechanical
level, by nuclear probes (reactions) acting on a virtual particle of the zero
point fluctuation (ZPF) of the nuclear vacuum in a similar irreversible,
no--return, fashion as the event horizon does, letting the other particle,
entangled with the first one, escape to infinity, and eventually be detected.
With this proviso in mind one can posit that the reactions
$^1$H($^{11}$Be,$^{10}$Be$(2^+$;3.37 ${\rm MeV}$))$^2$H and
$^{1}$H($^{11}$Li,$^9$Li($1/2^-$; 2.69 ${\rm MeV}$))$^3$H together with the
associated $\gamma-$decay processes indicate a possible nuclear analogy of
Hawking radiation.
