Microscopic description of Cf-252 cold fission yields

TL;DR

This paper models the cold fission of 252Cf using a shell model and semiclassical approach, revealing the influence of magic numbers and improving yield predictions, with implications for superheavy element synthesis.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed microscopic model for cold fission yields of 252Cf, emphasizing the role of shell effects and asymmetry degrees of freedom.

Findings

Inner cold valley linked to Z=50 magic number

Improved agreement with experimental yields

Supports estimation of superheavy nuclei production cross sections

Abstract

We investigate the cold fission of 252Cf within the two center shell model to compute the potential energy surface. The fission yields are estimated by using the semiclassical penetration approach. It turns out that the inner cold valley of the total potential energy is strongly connected with Z=50 magic number. The agreement with experimental values is very much improved only by considering mass and charge asymmetry degrees of freedom. Thus, indeed cold fission of 252Cf is a Sn-like radioactivity, related the other two "magic radioactivities", namely alpha-decay and heavy-cluster decay, called also Pb-like radioactivity. This calculation provides the necessary theoretical confidence to estimate the penetration cross section in producing superheavy nuclei, by using the inverse fusion process.