We examine the phenomenon of proton emission from the ground states of heavy nuclei, using a model of charged particle emission which has previously given a good description of unhindered s-wave alpha and exotic decays in heavy nuclei. We have extended the model formalism by including an angular momentum term, because the emitted proton seldom comes from an s orbital. Using a realistic proton-nucleus potential, obtained from proton-nucleus scattering, we calculate partial half-lives and find generally good agreement with the currently available experimental measurements.

• Received 12 November 1991

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.45.1688