Predicting decay pathways in superheavy nuclei: theoretical insights into α and cluster radioactivity

We employ the density-dependent cluster model to calculate α -decay half-lives of recently synthesized superheavy nuclei (SHN) with $$Z=104$$ –118. A microscopic α –nucleus potential is derived via the double-folding method using a realistic nucleon–nucleon interaction. Within the Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin approximation, supplemented by the Bohr–Sommerfeld quantization condition, we extract both the α -particle assault frequency and barrier-penetration probability for spherical and deformed daughter configurations. Our predictions for five isotopes of the superheavy element $$Z=123$$ are benchmarked against several established models, demonstrating excellent agreement. We also explore the competition between α -decay and spontaneous fission, and propose likely decay chains for the as-yet unobserved nuclei ³⁰²⁻⁻³⁰⁷123 . Finally, cluster-decay channels of 300,303,306,307123 are studied using the double-folding potential alongside the Universal curve (UNIV), the Universal Decay Law (UDL), the Unified Decay Formula (UDF), and Horoi’s approach. Notably, the UDL framework predicts positive branching ratios log ₁₀bc for heavy-cluster emission (e.g. ⁹⁰Sr , ⁹⁶Zr , ¹⁰²Mo ), indicating that such clusters may rival—or even dominate— α -decay in these SHN.