Radioactive rarities near the proton drip-line

NUCL 39

Robert K. Grzywacz, rgrzywac@utk.edu, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee / Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 401 Nielsen Physics Building, 1408 Circle Drive, Knoxville, TN 37996
Unusual decay modes like proton and two proton emission, long ago foreseen to involve isotopes beyond the proton drip-line, are result of the total binding energy variations with changing of the number of protons and neutrons forming a nucleus. The very select group of proton radioactive nuclei was established experimentally and is growing slowly. Proton radioactivity is one of the most sensitive experimental probes of the nuclear wave function, recent discoveries focus on fine structure in proton decay. The rarest observed decay mode, two proton radioactivity, discovered only recently, offers a fascinating perspective of using this decay mode to study in-medium correlations between emitted protons. The related question,is there an effect of enhanced correlation between protons and neutrons in N~Z nuclei, resulting in the "superallowed" alpha decay, was addressed by recent measurements near doubly magic 100Sn.