Nuclear fission in intense laser fields

TL;DR

This paper investigates how intense laser fields can influence nuclear fission processes like proton, alpha, and cluster decay, showing that laser fields can slightly modify decay half-lives and providing an analytical formula to describe this effect.

Contribution

It presents a theoretical study of laser-induced modifications of nuclear decay half-lives and derives an analytical formula linking laser effects to decay parameters.

Findings

Half-lives can be modified by about 0.01 to 0.1 percent in upcoming laser fields.

An analytical formula connects laser intensity, decay energy, and half-life changes.

Numerical results support the potential for laser control of nuclear decay processes.

Abstract

Rapid-advancing intense laser technologies enable the possibility of a direct laser-nucleus coupling. In this paper the effect of intense laser fields on a series of nuclear fission processes, including proton decay, alpha decay, and cluster decay, is theoretically studied with the help of nuclear double folding potentials. The results show that the half-lives of these decay processes can be modified by non-negligible amounts, for example on the order of 0.01 or 0.1 percents in intense laser fields available in the forthcoming years. In addition to numerical results, an approximate analytical formula is derived to connect the laser-induced modification to the decay half-life and the decay energy.