The electrostatic field strength inside heavy nuclei far exceeds the famous Schwinger critical field strength and most intense laser fields available nowadays. Under such an extreme electric field, the quantum electrodynamics (QED) effect dominated by vacuum polarization in the nuclear system turns out to dramatically enhance the nuclear decay probability against $\alpha$-decay, cluster radioactivity, and proton radioactivity by several times to even dozens of times, resulting in the reduced stability of nuclei. And it can even push the proton drip line toward the less proton-rich side. These extraordinary QED effects thus establish nuclear systems as a novel platform for probing strong-field QED physics.

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• Nuclear decay
• Nuclear tests of fundamental interactions
• Quantum electrodynamics
• Schwinger effect
• Vacuum stability