Possible measurement of the vacuum polarization in heavy-ion scattering

A measurement of the vacuum polarization potential in nonrelativistic elastic heavy-ion scattering is suggested. We find that in a typical sub- Coulomb barrier event enough momentum is transferred from the projectile to the target nucleus to make the high-$q^2$ behavior of the photon propagator observable. The elastic cross section is increased in a typical case by 2.5% above the Rutherford value. Only relative measurements are needed.