Systematic study on the competition between α-decay and spontaneous fission of superheavy nuclei

Abstract

The competition between α-decay and spontaneous fission (SF) of Z=112 isotopes are studied. The α-decay half-lives are estimated by the generalized liquid-drop model (GLDM) and several sets of analytic formulas. These formulas include the Royer formula, Viola–Seaborg semiempirical (VSS) formula and universal decay law (UDL). For the SF, its half-lives are calculated by using the Xu, Ren, Karpov and Santhosh formulas. It is shown that the predicted α-decay half-lives by different approaches are more or less identical. However, the SF half-lives are highly sensitive to models. To test the accuracies of different SF formulas, the half-lives of 56 even–even heavy nuclei are calculated by these formulas. By comparing with the experimental data, it is found that the Xu formula is the most accurate one to reproduce the experimental SF half-lives. This allows us to make a systematic prediction on the competition between α-decay and SF of even–even superheavy nuclei (SHN) with Z=104–120 by using the Xu formula and the above mentioned models on α-decay. The calculations suggest that 258,260104, 268–276110, 270–280112, 272–286114, 274–294116, 284–302118 and 292–308120 have smaller α-decay half-lives than those of SF. Thus these nuclei can be synthesized and identified via α-decay in the laboratory. In addition, it is observed that N=162, 178, 184 and 196 may be the submagic or magic numbers. Finally, an extensive study on the possible α-decay chains for Z=120 isotopes is performed. It is predicted that six sequential α-decay chains can be observed from 292–296120, four α-decay chains from 298120, three α-decay chains from 300,302120, two α-decay chains from 304,306120, and only one α-decay chain from 308120. These nuclei are the most likely candidates to be synthesized experimentally via α-decay in the near future.