Nuclear fission of heavy (actinide) nuclei results predominantly in asymmetric mass-splits. Without quantum shells, which can give extra binding energy to these mass-asymmetric shapes, the nuclei would fission symmetrically. The strongest shell effects are in spherical nuclei, so naturally, the spherical "doubly-magic" 132Sn nucleus, was expected to play a major role.
However, systematic...
Prompted by the discovery of an unexpected region of asymmetric, beta-delayed fission in the neutron deficient mercury region, we have developed the capability to fuse neutron-deficient rare isotope beams on 4He within the Active-Target Time Projection Chamber (AT-TPC)[1] and measure their charge distributions.
First measurements with this technique have been performed with neutron...
The Cassini shape parameterization has been applied to describe the nuclear shape in a static approach to fission1, and more recently, it was used to predict the fragment mass distribution (FMD) for the fission of super-heavy nuclei using an improved scission-point model2. In the latter calculations, the main fission coordinate α is fixed at a value corresponding to pre-scission shape, and the...
The role of shell closures of target-projectile combinations in fusion fission dynamics has been explored in an experimental campaign carried out at the accelerator facilities in India. Fission fragments from 224Th populated using the reactions 16O + 208Pb (both the target & projectiles doubly magic), 18O + 206Pb (both proton shell closed) and 19F + 205Tl (no shell closures), have been...
