α-decay energies of superheavy nuclei: Systematic trends

E. Olsen and W. Nazarewicz
Phys. Rev. C 99, 014317 – Published 25 January 2019

Abstract

Background: New superheavy nuclei are often identified through their characteristic α-decay energies, which requires accurate calculations of Qα values. While many Qα predictions are available, little is known about their uncertainties, and this makes it difficult to carry out extrapolations to as-yet-unknown systems.

Purpose: This work aims to analyze several models, compare their predictions to available experimental data, and study their performance for the unobserved α-decay chains of 120296 and 120298, which are of current experimental interest. Our quantified results will also serve as a benchmark for future, more sophisticated statistical studies.

Methods: We use nuclear superfluid density functional theory (DFT) with several Skyrme energy density functionals (EDFs). To estimate systematic model uncertainties, we employ uniform model averaging.

Results: We evaluated the Qα values for even-even nuclei from Fm to Z=120. For well-deformed nuclei between Fm and Ds, we find excellent consistency between different model predictions, and a good agreement with experimental results. For transitional nuclei beyond Ds, intermodel differences grow, resulting in an appreciable systematic error. In particular, our models underestimate Qα for the heaviest nucleus Og294.

Conclusions The robustness of DFT predictions for well-deformed superheavy nuclei supports the idea of using experimental Qα values, together with theoretical predictions, as reasonable (Z,A) indicators. Unfortunately, this identification method is not expected to work well in the region of deformed-to-spherical shape transition as one approaches N=184. The use of Qα values in the identification of new superheavy nuclei will benefit greatly from progress in developing both new spectroscopic-quality EDFs and more sophisticated statistical techniques of uncertainty quantification.

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  • Received 31 October 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.99.014317

©2019 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Nuclear Physics

Authors & Affiliations

E. Olsen and W. Nazarewicz

  • Department of Physics and Astronomy and FRIB Laboratory, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA

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Vol. 99, Iss. 1 — January 2019

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