Configuration-interaction approach to nuclear fission

TL;DR

This paper introduces a configuration-interaction method for modeling nuclear fission, explicitly including nucleon interactions, and compares its predictions with traditional transition-state theories to evaluate their validity.

Contribution

It develops a flexible CI framework for nuclear fission modeling that can incorporate realistic interactions and tests its effectiveness against established theories.

Findings

CI approach reproduces branching ratios consistent with transition-state theory

Modeling confirms insensitivity of rates to scission dynamics in CI parameterizations

Framework adaptable for realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions

Abstract

We propose a configuration-interaction (CI) representation to calculate induced nuclear fission with explicit inclusion of nucleon-nucleon interactions in the Hamiltonian. The framework is designed for easy modeling of schematic interactions but still permits a straightforward extension to realistic ones. As a first application, the model is applied to branching ratios between fission and capture in the decay modes of excited fissile nuclei. The ratios are compared with the Bohr-Wheeler transition-state theory to explore its domain of validity. The Bohr-Wheeler theory assumes that the rates are insensitive to the final-state scission dynamics; the insensitivity is rather easily achieved in the CI parameterizations. The CI modeling is also capable of reproducing the branching ratios of the transition-state hypothesis which is one of the key ingredients in the present-day theory of induced fission.