2007/03/31 by C. Samanta, P. Roy Chowdhury, P. Chowdhury +1 · 11 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Chemical Physics Studies #Atomic and Molecular Physics #Nuclear physics research studies #astro-ph #nucl-ex #nucl-th #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.nuclphysa.2007.04.001
published as Nucl.Phys.A789:142-154,2007 · 18 pages including 5 figures and 1 table
openalex publication_date 2007/04/07 · arxiv created 2007/05/28 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Theoretical estimates for the lifetimes of several isotopes of heavy elements with Z=102-120 are presented by calculating the quantum mechanical tunneling probability in a WKB framework and using microscopic nucleus-nucleus potential obtained by folding the densities of interacting nuclei with the DDM3Y effective nuclear interaction. The α-decay half lives calculated in this formalism using the experimental Q-values are in good agreement over a wide range of experimental data. Half lives are also calculated using Q-values extracted from two mass formulae. The Viola-Seaborg-Sobiczewski (VSS) estimates of α-decay half lives with the same Q-values are presented for comparison. The half life calculations are found to be quite sensitive to the choice of Q-values. Comparison with the experimental data delineates the inadequacies of older mass predictions in the domain of heavy and superheavy elements as compared to the newer one by Muntian-Hofmann-Patyk-Sobiczewski, and highlights necessity of a more accurate mass formula which can predict Q-values with even higher precision.