Semi-Microscopical Description of the Scission Configuration in the Cold Fission of $^{252}$Cf

We study the binary cold fission of $^{252}$Cf in the frame of a cluster model where the fragments are born to their respective ground states and interact via a double-folded potential with deformation effects taken into account up to multipolarity $\lambda=4$. The preformation factors were neglected. In the case when the fragments are assumed to be spherical or with ground state quadrupole deformation, the $Q$-value principle dictates the occurence of a narrow region around ...

Spontaneous fission of 252Cf and fusion-induced fission of 250Cf are investigated within a multi-dimensional Langevin model. The potential-energy surface is calculated in the macroscopic-microscopic LSD+Yukawa-folded approach using the four-dimensional Fourier-over-Spheroid shape parametrization. The dynamical evolution described by the Langevin equation is coupled to neutron evaporation, thereby allowing for the possibility of multi-chance fission. Charge equilibration and e...

A static microscopic study of potential-energy surfaces within the Skyrme-Hartree-Fock-plus-BCS model is carried out for the 256Fm and 258Fm isotopes with the goal of deducing some properties of spontaneous fission. The calculated fission modes are found to be in agreement with the experimentaly observed asymmetric-to-symmetric transition in the fragment-mass distributions and with the high- and low-total-kinetic-energy modes experimentally observed in 258Fm. Most of the resu...

Recent developments in theoretical modeling and in computational power have allowed us to make significant progress on a goal not achieved yet in nuclear theory: a fully microscopic theory of nuclear fission. The complete microscopic description remains a computationally demanding task, but the information that can be provided by current calculations can be extremely useful to guide and constrain phenomenological approaches. First, a truly microscopic framework that can descr...

The cold binary fission of even-even 244-258Cf isotopes has been studied by taking the interacting barrier as the sum of Coulomb and proximity potential. The favorable fragment combinations are obtained from the cold valley plot (plot of driving potential vs. mass number of fragments) and by calculating the yield for charge minimized fragments. It is found that highest yield for 244,246,248Cf isotopes are for the fragments with isotope of Pb (Z=82) as one fragment, whereas fo...

We developed a three-center phenomenological model,able to explain qualitatively the recently obtained experimental results concerning the quasimolecular stage of a light-particle accompanied fission process. It was derived from the liquid drop model under the assumption that the aligned configuration, with the emitted particle between the light and heavy fragment, is reached by increasing continuously the separation distance, while the radii of the heavy fragment and of the ...

Recent progresses in the description of the latter stage of nuclear fission are reported. Dynamical effects during the descent of the potential towards scission and in the formation of the fission fragments are studied with the time-dependent Hartree-Fock approach with dynamical pairing correlations at the BCS level. In particular, this approach is used to compute the final kinetic energy of the fission fragments. Comparison with experimental data on the fission of 258Fm are ...

The isotopic-yield distributions and kinematic properties of fragments produced in transfer-induced fission of 240Pu and fusion-induced fission of 250Cf, with 9 MeV and 45 MeV of excitation energy respectively, were measured in inverse kinematics with the spectrometer VAMOS. The kinematic properties of identified fission fragments allow to derive properties of the scission configuration such as the distance between fragments, the total kinetic energy, the neutron multiplicity...

This article reviews how nuclear fission is described within nuclear density functional theory. In spontaneous fission, half-lives are the main observables and quantum tunnelling the essential concept, while in induced fission the focus is on fragment properties and explicitly time-dependent approaches are needed. The cornerstone of the current microscopic theory of fission is the energy density functional formalism. Its basic tenets, including tools such as the HFB theory, e...

The scission of a nucleus into two fragments is at present the least understood part of the fission process, though the most important for the formation of the observables. To investigate the potential energy landscape at the largest possible deformations, i.e. at the scission point (line, hypersurface), the Strutinsky's optimal shape approach is applied. For the accurate description of the mass-asymmetric nuclear shape at the scission point, it turned out necessary to cons...