A study of alpha decay

The process of alpha decay in nuclei has traditionally been assumed to be governed by the many characteristic properties (Coulomb barrier, spin, parity, etc.) of the parent isotope and the alpha particle. This implies that each pair of parent–daughter transition is only marginally related to other pairs of the same element. In this paper, the author shows that the experimental data suggests there is a strong scale-independent relationship between the isotopes of an alpha emitting element. In most cases, the relationship between the energy and half-life values for the isotopes of an element can be represented by a single power law with mathematical precision. The presence of this relationship can be used to deduce information on the nuclear structure of some nuclei. Also it suggests that alpha decay properties may play a less restrictive role in the process than traditional models have previously assumed. The exponent of the power law is negative and slightly decreases in value linearly with increasing mass number. There is also a large negative peak in the vicinity of mass 82.