A systematic study of α-decay half-lives for Ac, Th, Pa, U and Np isotopes with A = 205–245 using the modified generalized liquid drop model.

The Modified Generalized Liquid Drop Model (MGLDM) has been used for calculating the ground-to-ground states of α -decay half-lives for various Ac, Th, Pa, U and Np isotopes in the mass number range of 2 0 5 ≤ A ≤ 2 4 5. To account for the nuclear proximity energy, the potential of Blocki et al.74 [J. Blocki, J. Randrup, W. J. Swiatecki and C. F. Tsang, Ann. Phys. NY 105 (1977) 427] is used. The experimental Q α values are used to evaluate the α -decay half-lives. It can be observed that the logarithm of α -decay half-life increases with increasing neutron number (N), with evident minimum at the magic number 126, where the neutron shell is closed. The calculated results are compared with available experimental data and with the predictions of different empirical formulae such as, ARF, MARF, Royer, AKRE, Akrawy, NRB, VS, MVS, YQZR and MYQZR. It is found that the MGLDM is able to predict the experimental half-lives with a standard deviation of 0.6892 (the lowest one among all the other applied empirical formulae), and is therefore suitable for predicting the α -decay half-lives for unknown and new heavy nuclei. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]