Dumbbell shapes in the super-asymmetric fission of heavy nuclei

TL;DR

This study models the mass distributions of fission fragments in heavy nuclei, revealing a super-asymmetric mode with dumbbell-shaped shapes, and assesses their probabilities and stability.

Contribution

It introduces an improved scission point model with generalized Cassinian ovals to analyze super-asymmetric fission modes in heavy and super-heavy nuclei.

Findings

Super-asymmetric fission mode has a probability 6 orders smaller in actinides.

Super-asymmetric mode's heavy fragment mass is around 190.

Super-asymmetric shapes are dumbbells with near-spherical heavy fragments.

Abstract

We have calculated the fission fragments' mass distributions for several isotopes of heavy and super-heavy nuclei from uranium to flerovium within an improved scission point model. For all considered nuclei, in addition to the standard mass-asymmetric fission mode we have found the mass super-asymmetric mode with the mass of heavy fragments equal 190. For the actinide nuclei, the probability of super-asymmetric fission is by 6 orders of magnitude smaller than for standard asymmetric fission. For the superheavy nuclei this probability is only by 2 orders of magnitude smaller. In all cases, the super-asymmetric scission shapes are dumbbells with the heavy fragment close to a sphere. We have estimated the stability of the light fragment concerning the variation of the neck and found out that sequential ternary fission is not favored energetically. The calculations were carried out with nuclear shape described by generalized Cassinian ovals with 6 deformation parameters, $\alpha, \alpha_1, \alpha_2, \alpha_3, \alpha_4$ and $\alpha_5$. The configuration at the moment of the neck rupture was defined by fixing $\alpha=0.98$. This value corresponds to a neck radius $r_{neck}\approx$ 1.5 fm.