Phys.Rev. C 92, 014319 (2015)

E.D.Davis, L.Hamdan

Reappraisal of the limit on the variation in α implied by the Oklo natural fission reactors

NUCLEAR REACTIONS ¹⁴⁹Sm, ^155,157Gd(n, γ), E=natural (Oklo) reactor neutrons; analyzed sensitivity of neutron resonance energies to changes in fine structure constant α; deduced α_Oklo-α_now. Comparison of change in α with results from atomic clock experiments. Relevance to astrophysical measurements of redshift dependence on parameters such as α.

NUCLEAR STRUCTURE ^149,150Sm, ^156,158Gd; calculated proton and charge density parameters for ground states of ^149,150Sm, excitation, Coulomb, and deformation corrections using deformed Fermi density distributions fitted to the output of Hartree-Fock (HF)+BCS calculations with SLy4 and SkM* Skyrme functionals.

doi: 10.1103/PhysRevC.92.014319