Two-proton emission and related phenomena

Abstract

One of characteristic phenomena for nuclei beyond the proton dripline is the simultaneous emission of two protons (2\emph{p}). The current status of our knowledge of this most recently observed and the least known decay mode is presented. First, different approaches to theoretical description of this process, ranging from effective approximations to advanced three-body models are overviewed. Then, after a brief survey of main experimental methods to produce 2\emph{p}-emitting nuclei and techniques to study their decays, experimental findings in this research field are presented and discussed. This review covers decays of short-lived resonances and excited states of unbound nuclei as well as longer-lived, ground-state radioactive decays. In addition, more exotic decays like three- and four-proton emission are addressed. Finally, related few-body topics, like two-neutron and four-neutron radioactivity, and the problem of the tetraneutron are shortly discussed.

109 pages, 62 figures, accepted by Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Probing the Non-exponential Decay Regime in Open Quantum Systems
• Observation and spectroscopy of proton-unbound nucleus ${}^{21}$Al
• Mirror Symmetry Breaking Disclosed in the Decay of Three-Proton Emitter 20Al
• A Vision for the Science of Rare Isotopes
• Exploring the possible two-proton radioactivity of ${}^{38,39}$Ti
• Fast rotation of nuclei with extreme isospin in the vicinity of neutron and proton drip lines
• Direct observation of three-neutron emission from ${}^7$He${}^{\ast }$ and the search for the trineutron
• Radii of proton emitters
• Structure evolution of ground and excited states in the exotic nucleus ${}^{22}$Al