Fusion-fission reactions with modified Woods-Saxon potential

TL;DR

This paper introduces a modified Woods-Saxon potential model based on the Skyrme energy-density functional to unify the description of fusion and fission barriers, successfully modeling a wide range of reactions and decay processes.

Contribution

It presents a new potential model that unifies fusion and fission barrier descriptions and systematically studies fusion-fission reactions using this model and the HIVAP code.

Findings

Fusion excitation functions of 120 reactions are well described.

Evaporation residue and fission cross sections of 51 reactions are accurately modeled.

Systematic errors and confidence limits are provided for the calculations.

Abstract

A modified Woods-Saxon potential model is proposed for a unified description of the entrance channel fusion barrier and the fission barrier of fusion-fission reactions based on the Skyrme energy-density functional approach. The fusion excitation functions of 120 reactions have been systematically studied. The fusion (capture) cross sections are well described with the calculated potential and an empirical barrier distribution. Incorporating a statistical model (HIVAP code) for describing the decay of the compound nucleus, the evaporation residue (and fission) cross sections of 51 fusion-fission reactions have been systematically investigated. Optimal values of some key parameters of the HIVAP code are obtained based on the experimental data of these reactions. The experimental data are reasonably well reproduced by the calculated results. The upper and lower confidence limits of the systematic errors of the calculated results are given.