Jhilam Sadhukhan

Spontaneous fission lifetimes from the minimization of self-consistent collective action

The spontaneous fission lifetime of 264Fm has been studied within nuclear density functional theory by minimizing the collective action integral for fission in a two-dimensional quadrupole collective space representing elongation and triaxiality. The collective potential and inertia tensor are obtained self-consistently using the Skyrme energy density functional and density-dependent pairing interaction. The resulting spontaneous fission lifetimes are compared with the static result obtained with the minimum-energy pathway. We show that fission pathways strongly depend on assumptions underlying collective inertia. With the non-perturbative mass parameters, the dynamic fission pathway becomes strongly triaxial and it approaches the static fission valley. On the other hand, when the standard perturbative cranking inertia tensor is used, axial symmetry is restored along the path to fission; an effect that is an artifact of the approximation used.

Microscopic modeling of mass and charge distributions in the spontaneous fission of 240Pu

We propose a methodology to calculate microscopically the mass and charge distributions of spontaneous fission yields. We combine the multidimensional minimization of collective action for fission with stochastic Langevin dynamics to track the relevant fission paths from the ground-state configuration up to scission. The nuclear potential energy and collective inertia governing the tunneling motion are obtained with nuclear density functional theory in the collective space of shape deformations and pairing. As a result, we obtain a quantitative agreement with experimental data and find that both the charge and mass distributions in the spontaneous fission of 240Pu are sensitive both to the dissipation in collective motion and to adiabatic fission characteristics.

Formation and distribution of fragments in the spontaneous fission of 240Pu

The goal of this paper is to better understand the structure of fission fragment distributions by investigating the competition between the static structure of the collective manifold and stochastic dynamics. In particular, we study the characteristics of the tails of yield distributions, which correspond to very asymmetric fission. We use the stochastic Langevin framework to simulate the nuclear evolution after the system tunnels through the multi-dimensional potential barrier. For a representative sample of different initial configurations along the outer turning-point line, we define effective fission paths by computing a large number of Langevin trajectories. We extract the relative contribution of each such path to the fragment distribution. We then use nucleon localization functions along effective fission pathways to analyze the characteristics of prefragments at pre-scission configurations. We find that non-Newtonian Langevin trajectories, strongly impacted by the random force, produce the tails of the fission fragment distribution. The prefragments deduced from nucleon localizations are formed early and change little as the nucleus evolves towards scission. On the other hand, the system contains many nucleons that are not localized in the prefragments, even near the scission point. Such nucleons are rapidly distributed at scission to form the final fragments. Our study shows that only theoretical models of fission that account for some form of dissipative/stochastic dynamics can give an accurate description of the structure of fragment distributions. In particular, it should be nearly impossible to predict the tails of these distributions within the standard formulation of time-dependent density functional theory. At the same time, the large number of non-localized nucleons during fission suggests that adiabatic approaches are ill-suited to describe fission fragment properties.

Fission fragment mass distributions in reactions populating Pb 200

The fission fragment mass distributions have been measured in the reactions

Fusion measurements for the

^{16}\mathrm{O}+\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}^{184}\mathrm{W}

{}^{18}

and

O+

^{19}\mathrm{F}+\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}^{181}\mathrm{Ta}

{}^{194}\mathrm{Pt}

populating the same compound nucleus

reaction and search for neutron shell closure effects

{^{200}\mathrm{Pb}}^{*}

Direct evidence of “washing out” of nuclear shell effects

at similar excitation energies. It is found that the widths of the mass distributions increase monotonically with excitation energy, indicating the absence of quasifission for both reactions. This is contrary to two recent claims of the presence of quasifission in the above-mentioned reactions.