Decay Studies of N≃Z Nuclei

Nuclear structure and astrophysics

“…Recently the α decay of the 105 Te ground state was observed [322,323] with a half life of 0.6 µs and a decay energy of 4.889 (6) MeV. The presence of fast α decays is a clear signature for a pronounced shell closure at Z, N = 50 as known from the 208 Pb region [324] and is expected to be even enhanced at N Z as superallowed α decay is predicted. The cyclic flow pattern stops continuation of the rp-process to higher Z and at the same time is a source of increased 4 He production.…”

The status and future of direct nuclear reaction measurements for stellar burning

“…using the radioactive species as a beam onto hydrogen or α-particles as a target (either solid or gas). With radioactive ion beam facilities, such as ISOL [169] and fragmentation [170] producing accelerated beams of relatively high intensity, the inverse kinematics technique brings several advantages to traditional measurements, such as unique capabilities for recoil identification, as long as the primary beam can be significantly suppressed [171]. In essence, recoil separators separate reaction products from unreacted beam and disperse them according to their mass-to-charge-state ratio.…”

Alpha Decay and Beta-Delayed Fission: Tools for Nuclear Physics Studies

“…This work was triggered by the experimental data obtained in the 109 Xe- 105 Te-101 Sn α-decay chain [43,44] (see Sec. 2.4) and the importance of these studies was also emphasized in [14]. As the protons and neutrons that form the α particle are occupying similar single-particle orbitals for the N = Z nuclei (around 100 Sn) but different ones for 212 Po, an increase in proton-neutron correlation and cluster formation probability is expected.…”

“…This is because in the latter case the protons and neutrons occupy the same shell-model orbitals, which could lead to enhanced clustering into an α particle. Thus α-decay studies of nuclei close to 100 Sn nucleus reveal interesting information on the nuclear-structure of N =Z∼50 nuclei and on the α-decay process itself [59,14].…”

“…More detailed descriptions and discussions are available from a number of excellent nuclear-physics and nuclear-chemistry textbooks (see e.g. [10][11][12]), review papers [13] and in the previous volumes of these lecture notes series [14,15].…”