PeTA - Penetrability of Three Alphas

This code calculates the decay penetrability and phase space distribution of the alpha particles emitted in the direct 3-body decay of 12C.

This code calculates the decay penetrability and phase space distribution of the alpha particles emitted in the direct 3-body decay of 12C.

It randomly samples the available phase space for the decay, subject to the constraints of energy and momentum conservation. This then generates a set of allowed energies and trajectories of the alpha particles in Cartesian space.

For this particular configuration, the 3-body Coulomb and centrifugal barrier is calculated as a function of the system's hyperradius. The decay penetrability is then calculated using the WKB approximation.

The decay penetrabilities are finally illustrated as a Dalitz plot of the three alpha particle energies. The colour scale shows the penetrability at each point on the Dalitz plot.