Binding Energies and Radii of the Nuclei with N >=Z in an Alpha-Cluster Model

TL;DR

This paper presents a phenomenological alpha-cluster model to describe binding energies and radii of nuclei with N >= Z, extending the description beyond beta-stability and analyzing the role of alpha-clusters and core density.

Contribution

It introduces a model linking surface tension energy to alpha-clusters, expanding isotope description to N >= Z nuclei and analyzing how alpha-cluster number and core density evolve with mass number.

Findings

Number of alpha-clusters decreases to 3 with increasing A for fixed Z.

Core density reaches saturation around 2.5-2.7 MeV/fm^3 at beta-stable isotopes.

Narrow binding energy strip is defined by a function of Z.

Abstract

Using the surface tension energy put in dependence on the number of alpha-clusters in the core in a phenomenological model representing a nucleus as a core and a nuclear molecule on its surface leads to widening the number of isotopes to be described from the narrow strip of beta-stability to the isotopes with N >= Z. The number of alpha-clusters in the molecule is obtained from the analysis of experimental binding energies and the specific density of the core binding energy \rho and the radii are calculated. It is shown that for the isotopes of one Z with growing A the number of alpha-clusters of the molecule decreases mostly to 3 and \rho increases to reach a saturation value within \rho = 2.5 \div 2.7 MeV/fm^3 at the beta - stable isotopes, so the narrow strip of the binding energies of the beta - stable isotopes with Z <= 84 is outlined by a function of one variable Z.