alpha Decay of Deformed Actinide Nuclei.

{alpha} decay through a deformed potential barrier produces significant mixing of angular momenta when mapped from the nuclear interior to the outside. Using experimental branching ratios and either semiclassical or coupled-channels transmission matrices, we have found that there is a set of internal amplitudes which is essentially constant for all even-even actinide nuclei. These same amplitudes also give good results for the known anisotropic {alpha}-particle emission of the favored decays of odd nuclei in the same mass region. {copyright} {ital 1996 The American Physical Society.}