$\textbf{Background}$ More than half of all the elements heavier than iron are made by the rapid neutron capture process (or r process). For very neutron-rich astrophysical conditions, such at those found in the tidal ejecta of neutron stars, nuclear fission determines the r-process endpoint, and the fission fragment yields shape the final abundances of $110\le A \le 170$ nuclei. The knowledge of fission fragment yields of hundreds of nuclei inhabiting very neutron-rich regions of the nuclear landscape is thus crucial for the modeling of heavy-element nucleosynthesis.
$\textbf{Purpose}$ In this study, we propose a model for the fast calculation of fission fragment yields based on the concept of shell-stabilized prefragments defined with help of the nucleonic localization functions.
$\textbf{Methods}$ To generate realistic potential energy surfaces and nucleonic localizations, we apply Skyrme Density Functional Theory. The distribution of the neck nucleons among the two prefragments is obtained by means of a statistical model.
$\textbf{Results}$ We benchmark the method by studying the fission yields of $^{178}$Pt, $^{240}$Pu, $^{254}$Cf, and $^{254,256,258}$Fm and show that it satisfactorily explains the experimental data. We then make predictions for $^{254}$Pu and $^{290}$Fm as two representative cases of fissioning nuclei that are expected to significantly contribute during the r-process nucleosynthesis occurring in neutron star mergers.
$\textbf{Conclusions}$ The proposed framework provides an efficient alternative to microscopic approaches based on the evolution of the system in a space of collective coordinates all the way to scission. It can be used to carry out global calculations of fission fragment distributions across the r-process region.
A simplified, though realistic, model describing two receding and accelerating fission fragments, due to their mutual Coulomb repulsion, shows that fission fragments share excitation energy well after they ceased to exchange nucleons. This mechanism leads to a lower total kinetic energy of the fission fragments, particularly if the pygmy resonances in the fission fragments are excited. Even though the emphasis here is on fission, similar arguments apply to fragments in heavy-ion reactions.
We present the first fully unrestricted microscopic calculations of the primary fission fragment intrinsic spins and of the fission fragments' relative orbital angular momentum for $^{236}$U$^*$, $^{240}$Pu$^*$, and $^{252}$Cf using the time-dependent density functional theory framework. Within this microscopic approach, free of restrictions and unchecked assumptions and which incorporates the relevant physical observables for describing fission, we evaluate the triple distribution of the fission fragment intrinsic spins and of their fission fragments' relative orbital angular momentum and sho…
We study the impact of fission on the production and destruction of translead nuclei during the r-process nucleosynthesis occurring in neutron-star mergers. Abundance patterns and rates of nuclear energy production are obtained for different ejecta conditions using three sets of stellar reaction rates, one of which is based on microscopic and consistent calculations of nuclear masses, fission barriers, and collective inertias. We show that the accumulation of fissioning material during the r process can strongly affect the free neutron abundance after the r-process freeze-out. This leads to a …
We propose an efficient approach to describe the fission-fragment charge yields for actinides based on the driving potential of fissioning system. Considering the properties of primary fission fragments at their ground states, the driving potential, which represents the potential energies of the system around scission configuration and closely relates to the yields of fragments, can be unambiguously and quickly obtained from the Skyrme energy-density functional together with the Weizsaecker-Skyrme mass model. The fission-fragment charge distributions for thermal-neutroninduced fission and spon…
Fissioning nuclei and fission fragments, nuclear fragments emerging from energetic collisions, or nuclei probed with various external fields can emit one or more pre-equilibrium neutrons, protons, and potentially other heavier nuclear fragments. I describe a formalism which can be used to evaluate the pre-equilibrium neutron emission probabilities and the excitation energies of the remnant fragments.
In the present paper, we explore the idea of isospin conservation in new situations and contexts based on the directions provided by our earlier works. We present the results of our calculations for the relative yields of neutron-rich fission fragments emitted in fast neutron-induced fission, 238U (n, fission) reaction by using the concept of the conservation of isospin and compare with the experimental data. Our results successfully reproduced the gross features of partition wise fission fragments distribution of 238U (n, fission). This confirms that in all kinds of fission, isospin remains p…
On the occasion of the $75^{th}$ anniversary of the fission phenomenon, we present a surprisingly simple result which highlights the important role of isospin and its conservation in neutron rich fission fragments. We have analysed the fission fragment mass distribution from two recent heavy-ion reactions $^{238}$U($^{18}$O,f) and $^{208}$Pb($^{18}$O,f) as well as a thermal neutron fission reaction $^{245}$Cm(n$^{th}$,f). We find that the conservation of the total isospin explains the overall trend in the observed relative yields of fragment masses in each fission pair partition. The isospin v…
The CGMF code implements the Hauser-Feshbach statistical nuclear reaction model to follow the de-excitation of fission fragments by successive emissions of prompt neutrons and $γ$ rays. The Monte Carlo technique is used to facilitate the analysis of complex distributions and correlations among the prompt fission observables. Starting from initial configurations for the fission fragments in mass, charge, kinetic energy, excitation energy, spin, and parity, $Y(A,Z,KE,U,J,π)$, CGMF samples neutron and $γ$-ray probability distributions at each stage of the decay process, conserving energy, spin an…
Experimental data on angular distributions of gamma rays emitted from binary and ternary spontaneous fission of $^{252}{\rm Cf}$ are analyzed. Their difference indicates that the alignment of fragments is higher in ternary fission than in binary one. The consequences of possible relation between the mechanism of ternary fission and the excitation of collective modes during the saddle-to-scission stage are discussed.
The even-odd effect in fission is explained by a model based on statistical mechanics. It reveals that the variation of the even-odd effect with the mass of the fissioning nucleus and the increase towards asymmetric splits is due to the important statistical weight of configurations where the light fission fragment populates the ground state of an even-even nucleus. This implies that entropy drives excitation energy and unpaired nucleons predominantly to the heavy fragment. Therefore, the even-odd effect is an additional signature of the recently discovered energy-sorting process in fission.
In the frame of proposed statistical method the calculation of fission-fragment yields mass and charge spectra for pre- actinide nuclei on example of natPb isotopes had been conducted.
We propose event by event velocity fluctuations of nuclear fission fragments as an additional interesting observable that gives access to the nuclear temperature in an independent way from spectral measurements and relates the diffusion and friction coefficients for the relative fragment coordinate in Kramer-like models (in which some aspects of fission can be understood as the diffusion of a collective variable through a potential barrier). We point out that neutron emission by the heavy fragments can be treated in effective theory if corrections to the velocity distribution are needed.
The characteristics of the odd-even effect in fission-fragment Z distributions are compared to a model based on statistical mechanics. Special care is taken for using a consistent description for the influence of pairing correlations on the nuclear level density. The variation of the odd-even effect with the mass of the fissioning nucleus and with fission asymmetry is explained by the important statistical weight of configurations where the light nascent fission fragment populates the lowest energy state of an even-even nucleus. This implies that entropy drives excitation energy and unpaired n…
We elucidated the reason why the average total kinetic energy (TKE) of fission fragments decreases when the excitation energy of the fissioning systems increases as indicated by experimental data for the neutron-induced fission events. To explore this problem, we used a method based on the four-dimensional Langevin equations we have developed. We have calculated the TKE of fission fragments for fissioning systems $^{236}$U$^{*}$ and $^{240}$Pu$^{*}$ excited above respective fission barriers, and compared the results with experimental data for n + $^{235}$U and n + $^{239}$Pu reactions, respect…
The strong quadrupolar component of the Coulomb field between newly formed fission fragments can affect the internal energy of the fragments and their angular momentum. Previous estimates of these effects gave contradictory conclusions about their magnitude. Here we calculate them by solving the time-dependent Hamiltonian equation for the daughter $^{100}$Zr produced in the fission reaction n + $^{235}$U $\rightarrow$ $^{136}$Te + $^{100}$Zr. The Hamiltonian was constructed from the projected angular momentum eigenstates of an aligned deformed mean-field configuration. For typical initial cond…
A new statistical method for systematizing the nuclei fission fragments, investigation of their mass and charge spectra and neutron fission parameters has been suggested. In proposed method, the mass and charge yields of nucleons are determined from the equilibrium conditions of the nuclear fragments post-fission ensemble. Here we consider protons and neutrons of different fragments as statistically non-equivalent. The abilities of the proposed statistical method for explanation of the U, Pa, Th, Ac and Ra post-fission fragments ordering and neutron emission function calculation have been demo…
The possibilities of the proposed statistical approach are shown in the task of investigating the post-scission transformation of mass and charge yields of fission fragments with considering the emission of different length of chains of elementary particles as the beta particles and neutrons fission. Using as the example the 232 Th isotope, which is located on the border between pre-actinide and actinides nuclei, the changes in the topology of fission fragments yields, the role of emission of nuclear particles in the competition of symmetric and asymmetric modes in fission processes are invest…
Consideration of memory of spin and parity in the fissioning compound nucleus by applying the Hauser-Feshbach fission fragment decay model to photonuclear reactions
Static self-consistent methods usually allow to determine the most probable fission fragments mass asymmetry. We have applied random neck rupture mechanism to the nuclei in the configuration at the end of fission paths. Fission fragment mass distributions have been deduced from the pre-scission nuclear density distribution obtained from the self-consistent calculations. Potential energy surfaces as well as nuclear shapes have been calculated in the fully microscopic theory, namely the constrained Hartree-Fock-Bogolubov model with the effective Gogny D1S density-dependent interaction. The metho…
The Hauser-Feshbach fission fragment decay model, $\mathtt{HF^3D}$, which calculates the statistical decay of fission fragments, has been expanded to include multi-chance fission, up to neutron incident energies of 20 MeV. The deterministic decay takes as input pre-scission quantities - fission probabilities and the average energy causing fission - and post-scission quantities - yields in mass, charge, total kinetic energy, spin, and parity. From these fission fragment initial conditions, the full decay is followed through both prompt and delayed particle emissions, allowing for the calculatio…
A consistent framework for treating the energy dependence of fission-fragment neutron multiplicities is presented. The shape evolution of the compound nucleus towards scission is treated in the strong damping limit using the Metropolis walk method. The available excitation energy at scission is then divided statistically between the two fragments using microscopic level densities. Deformation energies, which contribute to the excitation energy when the fragments relax to their ground-state shapes, are also computed. From the total fragment excitation energies, the number of emitted neutrons is…
During nuclear fission, a heavy nucleus splits into two rotating fragments. The associated angular momentum is large, yet the mechanism of its generation and its dependence on the mass of fragments remain poorly understood. In this Letter, we provide the first microscopic calculations of angular momentum distributions in fission fragments for a wide range of fragment masses. For the benchmark case of $^{239}$Pu($n_{\text{th}}$,f), we find that the angular momentum of the fragments is largely determined by the nuclear shell structure and deformation, and that the heavy fragments therefore typic…
The origin of the asymmetry in the fragment mass distribution of low-energy nuclear fission is considered from the semiclassical point of view. Using the semiclassical periodic-orbit theory, one can define and quantify the shell effect associated with spatially localized nascent-fragment (prefragment) part of the potential. We investigate the roles of prefragments in the deformed shell effect using a simple cavity potential model but with realistic shape degrees of freedom for describing the fission processes. The results suggest that the prefragment magic numbers play essential roles in deter…
Langevin equation is used to simulate the fission process of $^{112}$Sn + $^{112}$Sn and $^{116}$Sn + $^{116}$Sn. The mass distribution of the fission fragments are given by assuming the process of symmetric fission or asymmetric fission with the Gaussian probability sampling. Isoscaling behavior has been observed from the analysis of fission fragments of both reactions and the isoscaling parameter $α$ seems to be sensitive to the width of fission probability and the beam energy.
The structure effects of the fission fragments on their yields are studied within the statical theory with the inputs, like, excitation energies and level density parameters for the fission fragments at a given temperature calculated using the temperature dependent relativistic mean field formalism (TRMF). For the comparison, the results are also obtained using the finite range droplet model. At temperatures $T =1-2$ MeV, the structural effects of the fission fragments influence their yields. It is also seen that at $T = $ 3 MeV, the fragments become spherical and the fragments distribution pe…
Several sources of angular anisotropy for fission fragments and prompt neutrons have been studied in neutron-induced fission reactions. These include kinematic recoils of the target from the incident neutron beam and the fragments from the emission of the prompt neutrons, preferential directions of the emission of the fission fragments with respect to the beam axis due to the population of particular transition states at the fission barrier, and forward-peaked angular distributions of pre-equilibrium neutrons which are emitted before the formation of a compound nucleus. In addition, there are …
Fission-fragment mass and total-kinetic-energy (TKE) distributions following fission of even-even nuclides in the region $74 \leq Z \leq 126$ and $92 \leq N \leq 230$, comprising 896 nuclides have been calculated using the Brownian shape-motion method. The emphasis is the region of superheavy nuclei. To show compatibility with earlier results the calculations are extended to include earlier studied regions. An island of asymmetric fission is obtained in the superheavy region, $106\leq Z\leq114$ and $162\leq N\leq 176$, where the heavy fragment is found to be close to $^{208}$Pb and the light f…
We calculate neutron multiplicities from fission fragments with specified mass numbers for events having a specified total fragment kinetic energy. The shape evolution from the initial compound nucleus to the scission configurations is obtained with the Metropolis walk method on the five-dimensional potential-energy landscape, calculated with the macroscopic-microscopic method for the three-quadratic-surface shape family. Shape-dependent microscopic level densities are used to guide the random walk, to partition the intrinsic excitation energy between the two proto-fragments at scission, and t…
Systematic calculations of fission barriers allowing for triaxial deformation are performed for even-even superheavy nuclei with charge number $Z=112-120$ using three classes of covariant density functional models. The softness of nuclei in the triaxial plane leads to an emergence of several competing fission pathes in the region of the inner fission barrier in some of these nuclei. The outer fission barriers are considerably affected by triaxiality and octupole deformation. General trends of the evolution of the inner and the outer fission barrier heights are discussed as a function of the pa…
The fission-fragment mass and total kinetic energy (TKE) distributions are evaluated in a quantum mechanical framework using elongation, mass asymmetry, neck degree of freedom as the relevant collective parameters in the Fourier shape parametrization recently developed by us. The potential energy surfaces (PES) are calculated within the macroscopic-microscopic model based on the Lublin-Strasbourg Drop (LSD), the Yukawa-folded (YF) single-particle potential and a monopole pairing force. The PES are presented and analysed in detail for even-even Plutonium isotopes with $A=236 -246$. They reveal …
Nuclear fission produces fragments whose spins are coupled to the relative angular motion via angular momentum conservation. It is shown how ensembles of such spins can readily be obtained by either direct microcanonical sampling or by sampling of the associated normal modes of rotation. The resulting distribution of the spin-spin opening angle is illustrated in various three- and two- dimensional scenarios and it is demonstrated how recent mutually conflicting model calculations can be well reproduced with different assumptions about the scission geometry.
Eighty years after its experimental discovery, a microscopic description of induced nuclear fission based solely on the interactions between neutrons and protons and quantum many-body methods still poses formidable challenges. The goal of this paper is to contribute to the development of a predictive microscopic framework for the accurate calculation of static properties of fission fragments for hot fission and thermal or slow neutrons. To this end, we focus on the 239Pu(n,f) reaction and employ nuclear density functional theory with Skyrme energy densities. Potential energy surfaces are compu…
The recent advent of experimental techniques in which the dynamical characteristics of fission fragments are determined more accurately, prompted us to investigate the angular momentum acquired by fragments in a model which describes the cold(neutronless) fission of $^{252}$Cf as the decay of a giant nuclear molecule. The molecular configuration is a consequence of the interplay between the attractive nuclear part and the repulsive Coulomb+nuclear forces. The basic ideea of the present approach is to separate the radial(fission) modes describing the decay of the molecule from the modes associa…
We present the results of our calculations for the relative yields of neutron-rich fission fragments emitted in $^{208}$Pb ($^{18}$O, fission) reaction by using the concept of the conservation of isospin and compare with the experimental data. We take into account a range of isospin values allowed by the isospin algebra and assume that the fission fragments are formed in Isobaric Analog States. We also take into account the neutron multiplicity data for various neutron-emission channels in each partition, and use them to obtain the weight factors in calculating the yields. We then calculate th…
Neutron star (NS) merger ejecta offer a viable site for the production of heavy r-process elements with nuclear mass numbers A >140. The crucial role of fission recycling is responsible for the robustness of this site against many astrophysical uncertainties. Here, we introduce new improvements to our scission-point model, called SPY, to derive the fission fragment distribution for all neutron-rich fissioning nuclei of relevance in r-process calculations. These improvements include a phenomenological modification of the scission distance and a smoothing procedure of the distribution. Such corr…
An electron localization measure was originally introduced to characterize chemical bond structures in molecules. Recently, a nucleon localization based on Hartree-Fock densities has been introduced to investigate $α$-cluster structures in light nuclei. Compared to the local nucleonic densities, the nucleon localization function has been shown to be an excellent indicator of shell effects and cluster correlations. Using the spatial nucleon localization measure, we investigate the emergence of fragments in fissioning heavy nuclei. To illustrate basic concepts of nucleon localization, we employ …
Fission properties of the actinide nuclei are deduced from theoretical analysis. We investigate potential energy surfaces and fission barriers and predict the fission fragment mass-yields of actinide isotopes. The results are compared with experimental data where available. The calculations were performed in the macroscopic-microscopic approximation with the Lublin-Strasbourg Drop (LSD) for the macroscopic part and the microscopic energy corrections were evaluated in the Yukawa-folded potential. The Fourier nuclear shape parametrization is used to describe the nuclear shape, including the non-…
We have, recently, shown that the general trends of partition-wise fission fragment mass distribution in heavy ion (HI) induced compound nuclear (CN) fission of heavy nuclei can be reproduced reasonably well by using the concept of isospin conservation, hence providing a direct evidence of isospin conservation in neutron-rich systems [1, 2, 3, 4]. In this paper, we test the concept of isospin conservation to reproduce the fission fragment mass distribution emerging from thermal neutron-induced CN fission reaction, 245Cm(nth, f). As earlier, we use Kelson's conjectures [5] to assign isospin to …
The constrained Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov method is used with the Gogny interaction D1S to calculate potential energy surfaces of fissioning nuclei ${}^{226}$Th and ${}^{256,258,260}$Fm up to very large deformations. The constraints employed are the mass quadrupole and octupole moments. In this subspace of collective coordinates, many scission configurations are identified ranging from symmetric to highly asymmetric fragmentations. Corresponding fragment properties at scission are derived yielding fragment deformations, deformation energies, energy partitioning, neutron binding energies at sciss…
A simple phenomenological model, based on the Świ{\c a}tecki idea for evaluation of the spontaneous fission half-lives is proposed. The model contains only one adjustable parameter fixed to the data for even-even nuclei and two additional hindrance factors to the life-times, which give the effect of odd particles. A good agreement with the experimental data for all fissioning nuclei is achieved.
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 effect…
Accurate knowledge of fission fragment yields is an essential ingredient of numerous applications ranging from the formation of elements in the r-process to fuel cycle optimization for nuclear energy. The need for a predictive theory applicable where no data is available is an incentive to develop a fully microscopic approach to fission dynamics. In this work, we calculate the pre-neutron emission charge and mass distributions of the fission fragments formed in the neutron-induced fission of 239Pu using a microscopic method based on nuclear energy density functional (EDF) method, where large a…
Although the overall time-scale for nuclear fission is long, suggesting a slow process, rapid shape evolution occurs in its later stages near scission. Theoretical prediction of the fission fragments and their characteristics are often based on the assumption that the internal degrees of freedom are equilibrated along the fission path. However, this adiabatic approximation may break down near scission. This is studied for the symmetric fission of $^{258,264}$Fm. The non-adiabatic evolution is computed using the time-dependent Hartree-Fock method, starting from an adiabatic configuration where …
We analyzed the total kinetic energy (TKE) of fission fragments with three-dimensional Langevin calculations for a series of actinides and Fm isotopes at various excitation energies. This allowed us to establish systematic trends of TKE with $Z^2/A^{1/3}$ of the fissioning system and as a function of excitation energy. In the mass-energy distributions of fission fragments we see the contributions from the standard, super-long, and super-short (in the case of $^{258}$Fm) fission modes. For the fission fragments mass distribution of $^{258}$Fm we obtained a single peak mass distribution. The dec…
A recent analysis of experimental data [J. Wilson $et. al$, Nature $\mathbf 590$, 566 (2021)] found that the angular momenta of nuclear fission fragments are uncorrelated. Based on this finding, the authors concluded that the spins are therefore determined only $after$ scission has occurred. We show here that the nucleon-exchange mechanism, as implemented in the well-established event-by-event fission model $\mathtt{FREYA}$, while agitating collective rotational modes in which the two spins are highly correlated, nevertheless leads to fragment spins that are largely uncorrelated. This fact inv…
The intrinsic excitation energy of fission fragments is dynamically evaluated in terms of the time dependent pairing equations. These equations are corroborated with two conditions. One of them fixes the number of particles and the another separates the pairing active spaces associated to the two fragments in the vicinity of the scission configuration. The fission path is obtained in the frame of the macroscopic-microscopic model. The single particle level schemes are obtained within the two center Woods-Saxon shell model. It is shown that the available intrinsic dissipated energy is not share…
The population of rotational states in the ground-state band of neutron-rich fragments emitted in the spontaneous fission of $^{252}$Cf is described within a time-dependent quantum model similar to the one used for Coulomb excitation. The initial population probability of the states included in the selected basis is calculated according to the bending model at scission. Subsequently these initial amplitudes are feeding the coupled dynamical equations describing the population of rotational states in both fragments during the tunneling and post-barrier (pure Coulomb) motion. As application we c…
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, the total excitation energy, and, for the first time, the proton- and neutron-number sharing during the emergence of t…
