Yields of neutron-rich nuclei by actinide photofission in giant dipole resonance region

TL;DR

This study investigates actinide photofission within the giant dipole resonance energy range, analyzing fission modes, fragment mass distributions, and yields to explore neutron-rich nuclei production.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of symmetric and asymmetric fission modes and calculates yields and charge distributions at GDR energies for actinides.

Findings

Mass distributions of $^{238}$U fragments at GDR peak energy.

Calculated yields of neutron-rich nuclei from photofission.

Role of photofission in producing exotic neutron-rich isotopes.

Abstract

Photofission of actinides is studied in the region of nuclear excitation energies that covers the entire giant dipole resonance (GDR) region. A comparative analysis of the behavior of the symmetric and asymmetric modes of photon induced fission as a function of the average excitation energy of the fissioning nucleus is performed. The mass distributions of $^{238}$U photofission fragments are obtained at the endpoint bremsstrahlung energy of 29.1 MeV which corresponds to mean photon energy of 13.7$\pm$0.3 MeV that coincides with GDR peak for $^{238}$U photofission. The integrated yield of $^{238}$U photofission as well as charge distribution of photofission products are calculated and its role in the production of neutron-rich nuclei and their exoticity is explored.