An empirical formula of nuclear <i>β</i>-decay half-lives with the transition-strength contribution*

Abstract An empirical formula of nuclear β -decay half-lives is proposed by including the transition-strength contribution. The inclusion of the transition-strength contribution can reduce nuclear β -decay half-lives by about an order of magnitude, and its effect gradually increases toward the neutron-rich or heavy nuclear regions. For nuclear β -decay half-lives less than 1 s, the empirical formula can describe the experimental data within approximately2 times, which is more accurate than the sophisticated microscopic models. The transition-strength contribution can also be effectively considered by refitting the parameters of other empirical formulas without the transition-strength term although they will still significantly deviate from the new empirical formula in light or heavy neutron-rich nuclear regions. This indicates that the inclusion of the transition-strength contribution in the empirical formula is crucial for the global description of nuclear β -decay half-lives. The extrapolation ability of the new empirical formula was verified by the newly measured β -decay half-lives.