$\alpha$-nucleus potentials are one important ingredient for the understanding of the nucleosynthesis of heavy neutron-deficient p nuclei in the astrophysical $\gamma$ process where these p nuclei are produced by a series of $(\gamma ,n),$ $(\gamma ,p),$ and $(\gamma ,\alpha )$ reactions. I present an improved $\alpha$-nucleus potential at the astrophysically relevant sub-Coulomb energies which is derived from the analysis of $\alpha$ decay data and from a previously established systematic behavior of double-folding potentials.

• Received 16 December 1999

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.61.045802