Alpha decay measured in single-particle units as a manifestation of nuclear collectivity

Abstract

A salient feature of quantum mechanics is the inherent property of collective quantum motion, when apparent independent quasiparticles move in highly correlated trajectories, resulting in strongly enhanced transition probabilities. To assess the extend of a collective quantity requires an appropriate definition of the uncorrelated average motion, often expressed by single particle units. A well known example in nuclear physics is the Weisskopf unit for electromagnetic transitions which reveals different aspects of collective motion. In this paper we define the corresponding single particle unit for alpha decay as induced by four uncorrelated/non-interacting protons and neutrons. Our definition facilitates an unified description of all alpha decay processes along the nuclear chart, revealing a simple mass dependence. The comparison of the uncorrelated decay rates with the experimentally observed ones, shows a significant enhancement of the decay rates pointing towards collective alpha like correlations in the nuclear ground state. As a limiting case, the formalism presented here is applied to proton decay revealing its single particle nature.