Recent Progress in Two-proton Radioactivity

Abstract

During the last few decades, rare isotope beam facilities have provided unique data for studying the properties of nuclides located far from the beta-stability line. Such nuclei are often accompanied by exotic structures and radioactive modes, which represent the forefront of nuclear research. Among them, two-proton (2p) radioactivity is a rare decay mode found in a few highly proton-rich isotopes. The 2p decay lifetimes and properties of emitted protons hold invaluable information regarding the nuclear structures in the presence of a low-lying proton continuum; as such, they have attracted considerable research attention. In this review, we present some of the recent experimental and theoretical progress regarding the 2p decay, including technical innovations for measuring nucleon--nucleon correlations and developments in the models that connect their structural aspects with their decay properties. This impressive progress should play a significant role in elucidating the mechanism of these exotic decays, probing the corresponding components inside nuclei, and providing deep insights into the open quantum nature of dripline systems.