Microscopic Predictions for Cluster-Decays

TL;DR

This paper models the microscopic decay process of 232U emitting 24Ne, revealing a potential magic valley and shell effects influencing the decay path, and predicts half-lives aligning with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed microscopic model of cluster decay using a macroscopic-microscopic approach with five shape degrees of freedom and compares different methods for calculating half-lives.

Findings

Decay follows a potential magic valley with shell effects.

Inertia from the gaussian overlap approach best matches experimental half-lives.

Predicted half-lives for various cluster decays agree with phenomenological estimates.

Abstract

The decay dynamical path is determined within the macroscopic-microscopic model for the emission of 24Ne from 232U. The nuclear shape parametrization is characterized five degrees of freedom. The single particle energies and the nucleon wave functions are obtained within the superasymmetric Woods-Saxon two center shell model. It turns out that the cluster decay follows a potential magic valley, starting from the ground state of the parent and reaching a configuration of two touching nuclei at scission. A small pocket in the potential barrier is evidenced, as a result of large shell effects in the nascent fragments. The half-life is computed by using several approaches for the effective mass. It is shown that the inertia within by the gaussian overlap approach gives the closest values to the experimental ones. Half-lives for different cluster decays are predicted. The theoretical values are compared to various phenomenological estimates.