Electron capture of superheavy nuclei with realistic lepton wave functions

Abstract

The superheavy nuclei push the periodic table of the elements and the chart of the nuclides to their limits, providing a unique laboratory for studies of the electron-nucleus interactions. The most important weak decay mode in known superheavy nuclei is electron capture (EC). In the standard calculations of EC, the lepton wave functions are usually considered in the lowest-order approximation. In this work, we investigate the sensitivity of EC rates on the choice of the electron wave functions by (i) assuming the single-particle approximation for the electron wave functions, and (ii) carrying out Dirac-Hartree-Fock (DHF) calculations. The nuclear response is generated based on the state-of-the-art quasiparticle random phase approximation employing relativistic nuclear energy density functional theory. We show that using the improved lepton wave functions reduces the EC rates up to 40\% in the superheavy nucleus oganesson ($Z=118$). Interestingly, because of screening effects, the difference between the EC rates obtained with the DHF and single-particle calculations is fairly small.