Monte Carlo simulation of fast neutron-induced fission of ~(237)Np

The potential-driving model is used to describe the driving potential distribution and to calculate the preneutron emission mass distributions for different incident energies in the ~(237) Np(n, f)reaction. The potential-driving model is implemented in Geant4 and used to calculate the fission-fragment yield distributions, kinetic energy distributions, fission neutron spectrum and the total nubar for the ~(237) Np(n, f)reaction. Compared with the built-in G4 ParaFissionModel, the calculated results from the potential-driving model are in better agreement with the experimental data and evaluated data. Given the good agreement with the experimental data, the potential-driving model in Geant4 can describe well the neutron-induced fission of actinide nuclei, which is very important for the study of neutron transmutation physics and the design of a transmutation system.     

Energetics of the fission process

The mass asymmetry of fragments from nuclear fission of heavy nuclei is reviewed. While mass asymmetry is a common and well-known phenomenon for low-energy fission of the lighter actinides, more recent experiments have demonstrated that, for the heaviest actinides, the mass distribution switches to a symmetric one. On the other hand, it has been discovered that, though for fissioning nuclei with mass numbersA225 the mass distribution is basically symmetric, an asymmetric component is clearly to be identified for nuclei down to the Pb-region. In the absence of a generally accepted dynamical theory of fission, the above experimental findings are discussed in terms of static energy considerations. Triggered from the outset by the structure of the potential energy surface at the saddlepoint, the energy balance at the scission point between the available energy (Q-value) of the reaction and the Coulomb and deformation energy of the nascent fragments is shown to steer the characteristics of the fragment mass distributions.     

Symmetric and asymmetric fission modes in proton-induced fission at 660 MeV of <Superscript>238</Superscript>U

Fission product cross sections of intermediate-energy fission of ²³⁸U were used in order to construct the charge and mass yield distributions. Enriched target of ²³⁸U was irradiated by proton beam with energy 660 MeV for several hours at the LNP Phasotron, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Dubna, Russia. The charge distribution of the fission fragments was analyzed for calculation of isobaric cross sections. The mass yield curves were expanded into symmetric and asymmetric components according multimodal fission approach. The fissility values of actinides were calculated at given proton energy. The obtained results have been compared to the same data for targets ²³⁷Np and ²⁴¹Am.     

Investigation of the maximum accessible kinetic energy of fragments in the neutron-induced fission of 238U nuclei

The masses, total kinetic energies (TKE), and emission angles of fragments originating from the fission of ²³⁸U nuclei that was induced by 5- and 6.5-MeV neutrons were measured by using digital methods for processing signals. A detailed analysis of the shape of digital signals made it possible to reduce substantially the contribution of fragments whose TKE values were distorted because of a superimposition of signals from recoil protons and from alpha particles produced in the spontaneous decay of uranium. The total statistics exceeded two million events for either neutron energy, and this permitted performing a detailed analysis of fission-fragment yields in the region of the highest attainable TKE values. An analysis of fragment yields made it possible to draw specific conclusions on the structure of the potential surface of fissile nuclei.     

Investigation of fragment yields from <Superscript>239</Superscript>U fission at anomalously high values of the total kinetic energy

The yields of fragments originating from ²³⁸U fission induced by 5-MeV neutrons are investigated. Accumulated statistics—2.5×10⁶ events of binary fission—make it possible to study fission-fragment yields at anomalously high values of the total kinetic energy. The spectra of the cold fragmentation of ²³⁹U are obtained. Events characterized by the total kinetic energy that is equal to the total reaction energy are found for some fragment masses. Methods of digital signal processing permit a highly reliable identification of these rare events. An interpretation of this phenomenon on the basis of the liquid-drop model of the fission process is proposed.     

Target-fragment angular distributions for the interaction of 86 MeV/A12C with 197Au

Target-fragment angular distributions were measured using radiochemical techniques for 69 different fragments (44 ? A ? 196) from the interaction of 86 MeV/A¹²C with ¹⁹⁷Au. The angular distributions in the laboratory system are forward-peaked with some distributions also showing a backward peaking. The shapes of the laboratory system distributions were compared with the predictions of the nuclear firestreak model. The measured angular distributions differed markedly from the predictions of the firestreak model in most cases. This discrepancy could be due, in part, to overestimation of the transferred longitudinal momentum by the firestreak model, the assumption of isotropic angular distributions for fission and particle emission in the moving frame and incorrect assumptions about how the lightest (A < 60) fragments are produced. No evidence was found for any significant number of target fragments moving sidewise to the beam direction in apparent contradiction to the expectation of hydrodynamical-model calculations. The laboratory-frame angular distributions were transformed into the moving frame using various assumptions about the moving frame velocity. The resulting light-fragment distributions showed an asymmetry in the moving frame indicative of their production in a fast process without the establishment of statistical equilibrium. No evidence was found for any production of the light fragments by a very asymmetric fission mechanism. The fission-fragment distributions were compared to standard formulas and an average fissioning-system angular momentum of $\text{J = 40?50}\text{h}\text{?}$ was deduced. It was not possible to find a moving frame in which the heavy (A > 145) fragment distributions were symmetric about 90°.     

The study of prompt and delayed muon induced fission

Mass yield and total kinetic energy release (TKE) distributions of fragments from prompt and delayed muon induced fission, separately, have been measured for the isotopes²³⁵U,²³⁸U,²³⁷Np and²⁴²Pu. The distributions from prompt muon induced fission are compared with the corresponding distributions from hadronic reactions and from spontaneous fission (s.f.). The distributions from the delayed muonic fission processes are compared to the distributions for neutron and proton-induced fission. No mass distributions measured in the prompt muonic fission process show any signature, which can be attributed to the presence of the muon. Differences observed between the TKE distributions of prompt muon induced and hadron induced fission can be explained by the screening effect of the negative charge of the muon bound in the orbit of one of the fission fragments. The observed yield of symmetric muon induced fission was found to be defined merely by the value of the excitation energy.     

锕系原子核自发裂变性质的理论研究

运用推广的液滴模型（GLDM）来确定锕系原子核的自发裂变势垒, 采用量子力学中的WKB近似方法对相应自发裂变的半衰期进行了研究。 在GLDM中, 首次考虑了微观Strutinsky壳修正对裂变势垒的影响。 理论计算的锕系区重核自发裂变半衰期与实验值符合得很好, 表明包括微观壳修正的GLDM可以成功研究重核的自发裂变性质。 The spontaneous fission half lives of the actinides are calculated by the WKB approximation and the potential barriers are constructed by a General Liquid Drop Model (GLDM) including the proximity energy, the mass and charge asymmetry, and an accurate nucleus radius. The microscopic shell correction which plays a key role for the spontaneous fission barrier is considered for the first time. The two parameter quasi molecular shape and the proximity are described in details within the GLDM. The effects of the microscopic shell correction and proximity energy for fission barrier are discussed separately. The calcula ted spontaneous fission half lives for the actinides reasonably accord with the experimental data, implying the present GLDM combined with the microscopic shell correction can be used to study the spontaneous fission properties of heavy nuclei successfully.     

Deformation parameter changes in fission mass yields within the systematic statistical scission-point model

The fission fragment mass-yields are evaluated for pre-actinide and actinide isotopes using a systematic statistical scission point model. The total potential energy of the fissioning systems at the scission point is presented in approximate relations as functions of mass numbers,deformation parameters and the temperature of complementary fission fragments. The collective temperature, Tcoll, and the temperature of fission fragments, Ti, are separated and the effect of collective temperature on mass yields results is investigated. The fragment temperature has been calculated with the generalized superfluid model. The sum of deformation parameters of complementary fission fragments has been obtained by fitting the calculated results with the experimental data. To investigate the transitions between symmetric and asymmetric modes mass yields for pre-actinide and heavy actinides are calculated with this model. The transition from asymmetric to symmetric fission is well reproduced using this systematic statistical scission point model. The calculated results are in good agreement with the experimental data with Tcoll= 2 Me V at intermediate excitation energy and with T_(coll)= 1MeV for spontaneous fission.Despite the Langevin model, in the scission point model, a constraint on the deformation parameters of fission fragments has little effect on the results of the mass yield.     

RADIOCHEMICAL INVESTIGATION OF MASS DISTRIBUTIONS IN 12C-INDUCED FISSION OF 209Bi AND 238U

The yields of 15 and 17 fission, products have been obtained by radiochemical determinations in ¹²C-induced fission of ²⁰⁹Bi and ²³⁸U respectively. From these data, the mass distributions of fission fragments are calculated based on three different hypotheses for the charge distribution. The results seem to indicate that the hypothesis of equal charge displacement gives the best fit to the Gaussian distribution for the masses of the fission fragments. By comparison with the mass distributions for ²⁰⁹Bi (¹²C, f), ²³⁸U(¹²C, f) and ¹⁹⁷Au(¹²C, f) in our early measurement, we find that for fission parameter Z²/A>37, the width of the mass distributions increases with Z²/A rapidly.     

Transient effects in fission from new experimental signatures

A new experimental approach is introduced to investigate the relaxation of the nuclear deformation degrees of freedom. Highly excited fissioning systems with compact shapes and low angular momenta are produced in peripheral relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Both fission fragments are identified in atomic number. Fission cross sections and fission-fragment element distributions are determined as a function of the fissioning element. From the comparison of these new observables with a nuclear-reaction code a value for the transient time is deduced.     

Recent radiochemical studies of the fission process

This article summarizes the recent radiochemical investigations on mass, charge kinetic energy and fragment angular distributions in low energy fission of actinides.     

Effects of nuclear deformation in dinuclear systems: Application to the fission process

The relative yields of fission fragments, the mean values of their total kinetic energy, and the variances of their distributions with respect to the total kinetic energy are described within the improved scission-point model. It is shown that, for fixed charge and mass numbers of fragments, the potential energy of the prescission configuration as a function of the deformation parameters of the fragments has several minima. The scission at these minima leads to a relative enhancement of the yields of the fragments that have the corresponding values of the total kinetic energy and to the appearance of a fine structure in the mass-energy distribution, this structure being different from that induced by the even-odd effect.     

Shift in the angular distributions of γ quanta accompanying <Superscript>235</Superscript>U fission by polarized thermal neutrons

The angular dependence of the γ-ray asymmetry relative to the plane formed by the directions of fission-fragment separation and longitudinal polarization of the thermal neutrons inducing ²³⁵U(n, f) fission was investigated. The results obtained confirm the existence of γ-ray emission asymmetry and the dependence of its coefficient on the angle between the axes of the fission-fragment and γ-ray detectors, revealed for the first time by the ITEP group at the FRM-II reactor in Munich. The observed T-odd effect of around ∼2 × 10⁻⁴ can be explained by the angular anisotropy of the γ-ray emission from fission fragments with large angular momenta oriented relative to the fission axis.     

Fission experiments with secondary beams

Nuclear fission from excitation energies around 11 MeV was studied at GSI, Darmstadt for 76 neutron-deficient actinides and pre-actinides by use of relativistic secondary beams. The characteristics of multimodal fission of nuclei around ²²⁶Th are systematically investigated and related to the influence of shell effects on the potential-energy and on the level density between saddle point and scission. A systematic view on the large number of elemental yields measured gave rise to a new interpretation of the enhanced production of even elements in nuclear fission and allowed for a new understanding of pair breaking in fission.     

Nuclide yields of light fission products from thermal-neutron induced fission of 233U at different kinetic energies

The yields of light fission products from thermal-neutron induced fission of ²³³U are measured as a function of their mass A, their nuclear charge Z, their kinetic energy E and their ionic charge state q at the recoil spectrometer Lohengrin of the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble. The mass yields are determined by intercepting the fragments with an ionization chamber of high energy resolution positioned at the focal plane of the spectrometer. The nuclear charges and their yields are determined with the same ionization chamber by measuring the residual energy of fission products, selected monoenergetically by Lohengrin, behind a passive absorber made of parylene-C. The nuclear charge resolution enabled by this detector device is considerably improved to Z/dZ = 58. The nuclear charge and mass distributions summed over all ionic charge states are listed within the mass range 79 ⩽ A ⩽ 106 at 6 energies: E = 85.34, 90.41, 95.46, 100.50, 105.55 and 110.55 MeV. The energy-integrated nuclear charge and mass yields are also given. The isotonic and isotopic yields are shown. An odd-even effect in the yields is found for the protons as well as for the neutrons at all kinetic energies. The yield weighted total odd-even effect for the protons is found to be (22.1 ± 2.1)%, for the neutrons (5.4 ± 1.7)%. An odd-even effect for the protons in the mean kinetic energy is also observed. The displacement of the mean isobaric nuclear charges from the unchanged charge-density values and the variances of the isobaric nuclear-charge distributions reveal fine structures in their mass dependences.     

Prescission neutrons in the fission of 235U and 252Cf nuclei

Experimental data obtained previously for the energy-angular distribution of neutrons originating from the fission of ²⁵²Cf (spontaneous fission) and ²³⁵U (thermal-neutron-induced fission) nuclei are analyzed, the angle being measured with respect to the direction of fission-fragment motion. A regularity common to all independent experiments is revealed: at an angle of about 90°, there exists an excess of neutrons (30% for ²⁵²Cf and 60% for ²³⁵U) that does not admit explanation within the model of neutron emission from fully accelerated fragments. Two possible explanations of this experimental fact—neutron emission during the acceleration process and the existence of an additional source of neutrons (predominantly, prescission neutrons)—are considered. It is shown that the latter conjecture describes the observed features for both nuclei more adequately. The total yield of prescission neutrons and their energy and angular distributions are determined.     

Photoinduced fission of the doubly even uranium isotopes 234U, 236U and 238U

A measurement of the angular distributions and yields of fission fragments in the photofission of ²³⁴U has been performed between 5.2 and 6.4 MeV. As γ-source, the bremsstrahlung from a microtron was used. For the detection of the fission fragments, solid-state track detectors were used. The present data for ²³⁴U have been analysed together with earlier obtained data for ²³⁶U and ²³⁸U. The values of the fission barrier parameters obtained are compared to results in theoretical macroscopic and microscopic fission potential energy calculations.     

Ternary fission within statistical approach

The ternary system with a light nucleus between two heavy fragments is assumed to appear from the binary configuration near scission. The formation of a third light nucleus in the binary system is considered. The calculated charge distributions in spontaneous ternary fission of ²⁵²Cf and in induced ternary fission of ⁵⁶Ni are compared with the available experimental data. The neutron multiplicity from the fission fragments is described. The fine structures of the TKE-mass distribution are predicted.