Nuclear Energy Density Functional and the Nuclear α Decay

Abstract

We study the nuclear α decay of heavy nuclei using nuclear energy density functionals. This allows us to write the structure of the nuclear α potential inside the parent nucleus in terms of the proton and neutron density profile of the daughter nucleus with ad hoc parameters which control the strength of the potential. We adopt the Skyrme force model, Gogny force model, and relativistic mean field model to get the nucleon density profiles inside heavy nuclei. This approach is then applied to get predictions for unknown decay halflives of heavy nuclei and our results are compared with other model predictions.