Exploring the uncertainties in theoretical predictions of nuclear β-decay half-lives

Nuclear β-decay half-lives are predicted based on an empirical formula and the mass predictions from various nuclear models.It is found that the empirical formula can reproduce the nuclearβ-decay half-lives well,especially for short-lived nuclei with T_1/2<1s.The theoretical half-life uncertainties fromβ-decay energies and the parameters of the empirical formula are further investigated.It is found that the uncertainties of the half-lives are relatively large for heavy nuclei and nuclei near the neutron-drip line.For nuclei on the r-process path,the uncertainties for those with N=126 are about one order of magnitude,which are much larger than the uncertainties for those with N=50 and 82.However,theoretical uncertainties from the parameters of the empirical formula are relatively small for the nuclei on the r-process path,which indicates that the empirical formula is very suitable for predicting theβ-decay half-lives in r-process simulations.