Isospin composition of fission barriers

TL;DR

This paper investigates how isospin influences the fission barriers of $^{240}$Pu using a microscopic constrained Hartree-Fock approach, highlighting the significance of the isovector component in nuclear energy density functionals for accurate fission modeling.

Contribution

It introduces a method to separately analyze isoscalar and isovector effects on fission barriers using constrained Hartree-Fock theory.

Findings

Isovector component increases towards scission.

Isovector effects are significant for fission barrier predictions.

Stricter constraints on the isovector sector improve model reliability.

Abstract

We employ a microscopic method to study how isospin affect the fission potential of $^{240}$Pu. Our approach uses constrained Hartree-Fock theory (CHF) which allows us to separately investigate the isoscalar and isovector properties of the nuclear energy density functional (EDF). By analyzing the isoscalar and isovector components of the EDF along the fission path we can assess the isovector contribution to fission barriers. We study this effect for the fully adiabatic path to scission. The isovector component of the fission potential is found to increase in magnitude as the nucleus evolves towards scission, exemplifying the importance of stringent constraints on the isovector sector of the nuclear EDF for reliable predictions of fission properties.