Systematic study of α decay using different versions of proximity formalism

Abstract

Finding the best model to describe the α-decay process is an old and ongoing challenge in nuclear physics. The present work systematically studied α-decay half-lives for the favored ground-state-to-ground-state transitions of 344 isotopes of nuclei with 52 <= Z <= 107 using 28 versions of the proximity potential model in the framework of the WKB approximation. The present study introduces the best proximity versions with the fewest deviations with respect to experimental values. The models for Prox. 77-set 4, Prox. 77-set 5, and Dutt 2011 with the root-mean-square deviations (RMSDs) of <1 were found to predict α-decay half-lives better than the other models. Comparison with fusion studies shows that Dutt 2011 is an appropriate model both for α-decay studies and for prediction of the barrier characteristic in heavy-ion fusion reactions. The calculation of α-decay half-lives were repeated for even-even, even-odd, odd-even, and odd-odd nuclei. This detailed comparative study reveals that for these versions the half-lives of the even-even nuclei with RMSDs of <0.6 show less deviation than the even-odd, odd-even, and odd-odd nuclei.