Prediction of Alpha-Decay Half-Lives of Actinide Nuclei Using the DDM3Y Effective Interaction Potential

Abstract

The prediction of nuclear half-lives is vital for understanding nuclear stability with significant applications in astrophysics, nuclear energy, and medical physics. This study investigates the $α$-decay half-lives of 154 actinide nuclei in the atomic number range $89 \le Z \le 103$ using the Density-Dependent M3Y (DDM3Y) effective interaction potential. The theoretical framework utilizes a double-folding model where the densities of the $α$-particle and the daughter nucleus are folded to derive the nuclear interaction potential.Theoretical half-lives were calculated using the WKB approximation and compared against experimental data and established semi-empirical models, including the Viola-Seaborg (VSS), CPPM, GLDM, and ELDM frameworks. The DDM3Y model demonstrates a systematically improved agreement with experimental half-lives across the actinide series, effectively capturing the inverse correlation between $Q$-values and decay times. Statistical analysis yielded a standard deviation of 1.76, confirming the reliability of this approach for predicting the stability and decay properties of heavy and new isotopes.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: Schematic of the DDM3Y double-folding model for the $\alpha$-daughter system. Here, $\vec{r}_1$ and $\vec{r}_2$ denote the positions of nucleons in the $\alpha$ particle and daughter nucleus, respectively, and $\vec{R}$ is the center-to-center separation. The effective interaction $\nu(|\vec{r}_2-\vec{r}_1+\vec{R}|)$ is folded over the two densities to obtain the $\alpha$-daughter potential.
• Figure 2: A plot of M3Y effective interaction potential versus separation distance.
• Figure 3: A plot of total potential as a function of separation distance for $\alpha$-decay from the parent nuclei $^{209}$Ac nuclei.
• Figure 4: A plot of log$T_{1/2}^{PW}$/log$T_{1/2}^{EXP}$ as a function of atomic mass of parent nuclei in the range 200 to 260.