English

Correlation between nuclear isospin asymmetry and $\alpha$-particle preformation probability for superheavy nuclei from a Bayesian inference

Nuclear Theory 2026-05-12 v2

Abstract

In the study of α\alpha decay within the superheavy nuclear region (Z90Z \geq 90 and N140N \geq 140), the α\alpha-particle preformation probability PαP_{\alpha} serves as a crucial physical quantity linking nuclear structure to decay observables. We introduce a phenomenological model incorporating the decay energy QαQ_{\alpha}, mass number AA, orbital angular momentum ll, isospin asymmetry II, and unpaired nucleon effect. For the first time, a Bayesian inference method combined with Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling has been employed to impose global constraints on the model parameters, enabling the systematic and high-precision calculation of PαP_{\alpha}. The results reveal a significant suppressing effect of isospin asymmetry on PαP_{\alpha}, a finding independently corroborated by random forest-based feature importance analysis, which identified II as a dominant factor. Furthermore, calculations using the maximum a posteriori (MAP) parameters not only reproduce the shell effect at N=152N=152 but also yield α\alpha decay half-life predictions in excellent agreement with experimental ones, thereby validating this model universality. This work provides the first global analysis tool for probing the α\alpha preformation mechanism in superheavy nuclei, underscores the potential of the Bayesian framework for inverting complex nuclear physics problems, and establishes a reliable theoretical benchmark for guiding future experimental exploration of superheavy nuclei.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.07983,
  title  = {Correlation between nuclear isospin asymmetry and $\alpha$-particle preformation probability for superheavy nuclei from a Bayesian inference},
  author = {Xiao-Yan Zhu and Hao Zhang and Wei Gao and Wen-Jing Xing and Wen-Bin Lin and Xiao-Hua Li},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.07983},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

17 pages, 6 figures, version accepted for publication in Nucl. Sci. Tech