Signature of the N = 126 shell closure in dwell times of alpha-particle tunneling

Abstract

Characteristic quantities such as the penetration and preformation probabilities, assault frequency and tunneling times in the tunneling description of alpha decay of heavy nuclei are explored to reveal their sensitivity to neutron numbers in the vicinity of the magic neutron number N = 126. Using realistic nuclear potentials, the sensitivity of these quantities to the parameters of the theoretical approach is also tested. An investigation of the region from N = 116 to N = 132 in Po nuclei reveals that the tunneling α particle spends the least amount of time with an N = 126 magic daughter nucleus. The shell closure at N = 126 seems to affect the behavior of the dwell times of the tunneling alpha particles and this occurs through the influence of the Q-values involved.