Proton emission study as a guide to astrophysical rp process

¹ Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee 247667, India
² Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA
³ Department of Physics, BIT Sindri, Dhanbad, Jharkhand-828121, India
⁴ Centro de Física e Engenharia de Materiais Avançados CeFEMA, and Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Avenida Rovisco Pais, P1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal

^* e-mail: psiwach@physics.wisc.edu

Published online: 24 February 2022

Abstract

Proton emitters play an important role in deciding the path of the astrophysical rapid proton capture (rp) process. The lifetime of these nuclei depends on several factors, like the deformation, angular momentum of the emitted proton, residual interaction between valence proton and neutron (especially in case of odd-odd nuclei) and so on. Therefore, it is worth to investigate the structure of proton emitters to understand the rp process path. However, due to lack of data in this exotic region, the theoretical models should be robust and the dependence on the free parameters should be minimal. In this direction, we have developed the first microscopic approach to study the triaxially deformed odd-odd proton emitters. The application of the developed approach to ¹⁰⁸I, a recently observed proton emitter to investigate the end cycle of the rp process, is discussed.