Decay rules in proton emission.

We give a simple relation, connecting the logarithm of the half-life, corrected by the centrifugal barrier, with the Coulomb parameter in proton decay processes. The reduced experimental data lie on two straight lines as a result of a sudden change in the nuclear shape, marking two regions of deformation, divided by the charge number Z = 68. This feature provides a powerful tool to assign experimentally quantum numbers in proton emitters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]