Competition betweenαdecay and spontaneous fission for heavy and superheavy nuclei

Abstract

We systematically investigate the {alpha}-decay and spontaneous fission half-lives for heavy and superheavy nuclei with proton number Z{>=}90. The {alpha}-decay half-lives are obtained by the deformed version of the density-dependent cluster model (DDCM). In the DDCM, the microscopic potential between the {alpha} particle and the daughter nucleus is evaluated numerically from the double-folding model with the M3Y interaction. The influence of the core deformation on the double-folding potential is also properly taken into account by the multipole expansion method. The spontaneous fission half-lives of nuclei from {sup 232}Th to {sup 286}114 are calculated with the parabolic potential approximation by taking nuclear structure effects into account. The agreement between theoretical results and the newly observed data is satisfactory for both {alpha} emitters and spontaneous fission nuclei. The competition between {alpha} decay and spontaneous fission is analyzed in detail and the branching ratios of these two decay modes are predicted for the unknown cases.