Suddenly shortened half-lives beyond $^{78}$Ni: $N=50$ magic number and high-energy non-unique first-forbidden transitions

Abstract

$β$-decay rates play a decisive role in understanding the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements and are governed by microscopic nuclear-structure information. A sudden shortening of the half-lives of Ni isotopes beyond $N=50$ was observed at the RIKEN-RIBF. This is considered due to the persistence of the neutron magic number $N=50$ in the very neutron-rich Ni isotopes. By systematically studying the $β$-decay rates and strength distributions in the neutron-rich Ni isotopes around $N=50$, I try to understand the microscopic mechanism for the observed sudden shortening of the half-lives. The $β$-strength distributions in the neutron-rich nuclei are described in the framework of nuclear density-functional theory. I employ the Skyrme energy-density functionals (EDF) in the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov calculation for the ground states and in the proton-neutron Quasiparticle Random-Phase Approximation (pnQRPA) for the transitions. Not only the allowed but the first-forbidden (FF) transitions are considered. The experimentally observed sudden shortening of the half-lives beyond $N=50$ is reproduced well by the calculations employing the Skyrme SkM* and SLy4 functionals. The sudden shortening of the half-lives is due to the shell gap at $N=50$ and cooperatively with the high-energy transitions to the low-lying $0^-$ and $1^-$ states in the daughter nuclei. The onset of FF transitions pointed out around $N=82$ and 126 is preserved in the lower-mass nuclei around $N=50$. This study suggests that needed is a microscopic calculation where the shell structure in neutron-rich nuclei and its associated effects on the FF transitions are selfconsistenly taken into account for predicting $β$-decay rates of exotic nuclei in unknown region.