On nuclear effects in proton decay

Abstract

A previous work about inclusive proton decay in a nucleus is critically analyzed. Explicit new calculations are carried out in the deuteron, which turn out to be consistent with previous evaluations by other authors. By relating the inclusive decay rate to the proton Green s function and self-energy in a nucleus, it is shown that it is proportional to A for large enough nuclei. That is, the lifetime per nucleon is an intensive quantity (depending on the nuclear density). Finally, some relationships between inclusive proton decay and one-proton transfer reactions in nuclei are suggested.