34Si decay of the 242Cm nucleus -: art. no. 047304

The emission of the Si-34 cluster, with respect to the ru particle, in the spontanous decay of the Cm-242 nucleus is studied within a preformed cluster model developed by one of us (R.K.G.) and collaborators. The preformation factors are predicted to be very small, similar to 10(-9) and similar to 10(-24), respectively, for the alpha particle and Si-34 cluster. With no parameter of the model fitted to experimental data, the half-life times far both the alpha particle and Si-34 decays of Cm-242 are predicted within only one to two orders of magnitude of the experimental values.