Attempt to connect the nuclear charge radii with the experimental α decay data for superheavy nuclei

Department of Applied Physics, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China

^* e-mail: qyibin@njust.edu.cn

Published online: 16 May 2018

Abstract

Significant progresses have been made so far for the synthesis of the heaviest elements, while the knowledge of them appears to be quite limited even when it comes to basic properties, e.g., their size. On the other side, the observation of α decay chains is the main tool to identify the newly produced elements. In this report, we propose to make use of the available experimental α decay data to extract the nuclear charge radii of superheavy nuclei. Within the density dependent cluster model, the nucleon density distribution of the target nucleus is determined by exactly reproducing the measured α decay half-life of its parent, finally leading to the nuclear radii. Encouraged by the agreement between theory and experiment for heavy nuclei, we extend the study to the region of superheavy nuclei as well.