Reveal the dynamics of three-body decay*

Exotic decay occurs beyond the dripline of the nuclear landscape. Among these decays, two-proton (2p) radioactivity is a unique three-body process that involves the emission of two protons from the ground state of even-Z neutron-deficient nuclei. Such exotic decay is of particular interest as it provides invaluable information on nucleon-nucleon correlation. The interplay between inner structure and final-state interaction can also help us gain deep insight into the universal properties of open quantum systems. To study the mechanism of three-body decay, we developed a time-dependent approach that allows us to probe emitted nucleons at long times and large distances. We demonstrated that the time evolution of the two-nucleon wave function is strongly impacted by the diproton/dineutron dynamics. The correlations between emitted nucleons provide invaluable information on the dinucleon structure in the initial state.