Concept of Parentage of Nuclear States and Its Importance in Nuclear Reaction Phenomena

Abstract

The concept of fractional parentage of nuclear states is invoked to point out that many dynamical properties of nuclear systems (transition rates and level widths) are controlled by products of the coefficients of fractional parentage for common parents (the "parentage overlap") between initial and final states. Illustrations are given from a range of nuclear reactions including radiative transitions, high - and low-energy stripping, pickup, and photonuclear processes. It is particularly to be emphasized that, because of the occurrence of the coefficients of fractional parentage and certain (vector coupling) weighting factors in the expression for the transition rate, one may find reduced and radiative widths very considerably less than the "single-particle" values even though the states concerned are wholly of an independent-particle character; enhanced transitions are also possible within the same scheme.