Estimates of the influence of nuclear deformations on the lifetimes of heavy-fragment radioactivities

The authors estimate the influence of nuclear ground-state deformations on the lifetimes of heavy-fragment radioactivities. It is shown that deviations from sphericity of the fragments lead to significant corrections of the lifetimes of heavy-fragment radioactivities. Other ideas and refinements recognised within fission-like calculations are extended to include the excitation of collective modes as a mechanism for enhancing heavy-fragment radioactivity. The estimations are performed for the most interesting cases under the current experimental search.