A new barrier penetration formula and its application to alpha-decay half-lives

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new barrier penetration formula based on the WKB approximation, specifically for Coulomb barriers, and demonstrates its effectiveness in accurately predicting alpha-decay half-lives of nuclei.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel barrier penetration formula tailored for Coulomb barriers, improving the calculation of alpha-decay half-lives with high accuracy.

Findings

New formula agrees well with WKB calculations

Accurately predicts alpha-decay half-lives

Effective for low-energy barrier penetration

Abstract

Starting from the WKB approximation, a new barrier penetration formula is proposed for potential barriers containing a long-range Coulomb interaction. This formula is especially proper for the barrier penetration with penetration energy much lower than the Coulomb barrier. The penetrabilities calculated from the new formula agree well with the results from the WKB method. As a first attempt, this new formula is used to evaluate alpha decay half-lives of atomic nuclei and a good agreement with the experiment is obtained.