Calculations of the alpha decay half-lives of some Polonium isotopes using the double folding model

TL;DR

This paper calculates alpha decay half-lives of Polonium isotopes using a double folding model with various nuclear interactions, improving agreement with experimental data especially with density-dependent potentials.

Contribution

It introduces the use of R3Y relativistic mean field derived interactions in the double folding model for alpha decay calculations, comparing different parametrizations and density dependencies.

Findings

Density-dependent interactions improve half-life predictions.

R3Y interactions yield comparable or better results than M3Y.

The model accurately reproduces experimental half-lives.

Abstract

The calculations of the alpha decay half-lives of some Polonium isotopes in the mass range 186 - 218 have been carried out using the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) semiclassical approximation. The alpha-nucleus effective potential used contains the Coulomb potential, centrifugal potential, and the nuclear potential. The nuclear potential is obtained via the double folding model, with the microscopic NN effective interactions derived from relativistic mean field theory Lagrangian (termed R3Y). Different parametrizations of the R3Y interactions have been employed in the computation of the nuclear potentials. The results obtained using the R3Y NN interactions are compared with the ones obtained using the famous Michigan-3-Yukawa (M3Y) interactions. The use of density-dependent NN interaction is also considered. When compared to available experimental data, there are improvements in the results when density-dependent interaction potentials are used compared to when density-independent interactions are employed.