One-proton emission from 148,149,150,151Lu in the DRHBc plus WKB approach

TL;DR

This paper employs a microscopic self-consistent DRHBc plus WKB approach to accurately predict proton emission half-lives in lutetium isotopes, revealing deformation effects and improving upon previous models.

Contribution

It introduces a novel combination of DRHBc theory with WKB for proton emission, providing more accurate half-life predictions and insights into nuclear deformation.

Findings

Predicted half-life of 149Lu matches experimental data.

149Lu is confirmed to be oblate with deformation -0.18.

Predicted 148Lu to be more oblate with longer half-life.

Abstract

One-proton radioactivity in 149Lu, the latest identified proton emitter, is studied in the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) approach with the proton-nucleus potential extracted from the deformed relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory in continuum (DRHBc) for the first time. The predicted half-life turns out to be consistent with the experimental measurement within uncertainties and (almost) independent of the density functionals in the DRHBc theory. Such a microscopic self-consistent calculation reveals that 149Lu is oblately deformed with a quadrupole deformation -0.18, and rules out the possibility of a prolate quadrupole deformation suggested in the nonadiabatic quasiparticle model. We also check the validity of this approach in the description of 150,151Lu and their isomeric states. The deviations of the predicted half-lives from their experimental counterparts are mostly smaller than those of the theoretical studies without considering deformation effects. Furthermore, we predict 148Lu to be a more oblately deformed proton-emitter with a longer half-life than that of 149Lu, which can be checked in the future. Our studies show that the DRHBc plus WKB approach provides a new alternative method to evaluate the half-lives of well-deformed proton emitters.