Neutron-rich rare isotope production from projectile fission of heavy beams in the energy range of 20 MeV/nucleon

TL;DR

This paper explores the production of neutron-rich isotopes through projectile fission of heavy ions at 20 MeV/nucleon, combining theoretical models with experimental data to assess its potential for astrophysical research.

Contribution

It introduces a combined theoretical approach using DIT or CoMD models with SMM to describe projectile fission at low energies, validated against experimental data.

Findings

Model calculations agree reasonably with experimental data.

Projectile fission at this energy can produce very neutron-rich isotopes.

Potential to access isotopes beyond the astrophysical r-process path.

Abstract

We investigate the possibilities of producing neutron-rich nuclides in projectile fission of heavy beams in the energy range of 20 MeV/nucleon expected from low-energy facilities. We report our efforts to theoretically describe the reaction mechanism of projectile fission following a multinucleon transfer collision at this energy range. Our calculations are mainly based on a two-step approach: the dynamical stage of the collision is described with either the phenomenological Deep-Inelastic Transfer model (DIT), or with the microscopic Constrained Molecular Dynamics model (CoMD). The deexcitation/fission of the hot heavy projectile fragments is performed with the Statistical Mul- tifragmentation Model (SMM). We compared our model calculations with our previous experimental projectile-fission data of 238U (20 MeV/nucleon)+208Pb and 197Au (20 MeV/nucleon)+197Au and found an overall reasonable agreement. Our study suggests that projectile fission following periph- eral heavy-ion collisions at this energy range offers an effective route to access very neutron-rich rare isotopes toward and beyond the astrophysical r-process path.