Hindrance factors corresponding to α decay from two quasiparticle isomeric high $K$ states are evaluated in superheavy nuclei. We found that the hindrance factors are very sensitive to the deformations and, therefore, they may constitute a powerful tool to extract spectroscopic information in these nuclei. The hindrance factors turn out to be very large, specially for nonaligned configurations. This indicates that if one of such states is reached the parent nucleus may become isomeric. It is also possible that α decay may not proceed through ground state to ground state chains but rather through excited states.

• Received 9 August 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.76.044301