New approach for alpha decay half-lives of superheavy nuclei and applicability of WKB approximation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method for estimating alpha decay half-lives of superheavy nuclei using neighbor-based formulas, and evaluates the WKB approximation's effectiveness in quantum tunneling calculations.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel neighbor-based approach for predicting alpha decay half-lives and tests the WKB approximation's applicability across different decay modes.

Findings

New approach yields half-life estimates in good agreement with experiments.

WKB approximation accurately models tunneling probabilities for alpha, proton, and cluster decay.

Method enhances predictive capabilities for superheavy nuclei decay properties.

Abstract

The alpha decay half-lives of recently synthesized superheavy nuclei (SHN) are calculated by applying a new approach which estimates them with the help of their neighbors based on some simple formulas. The estimated half-life values are in very good agreement with the experimental ones, indicating the reliability of the experimental observations and measurements to a large extent as well as the predictive power of our approach. The second part of this work is to test the applicability of the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) approximation for the quantum mechanical tunneling probability. We calculated the accurate barrier penetrability for alpha decay along with proton and cluster radioactivity by numerically solving Schr\"odinger equation. The calculated results are compared with those of the WKB method to find that WKB approximation works well for the three physically analogical decay modes.