Comparison between cross sections, saddle point and scission point barriers for the ³²S+²⁴Mg reaction

Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica

^a e-mail: nztiago@gmail.com

Published online: 1 April 2014

Abstract

One of the principal characteristics of nuclear multifragmentation is the emission of complex fragments of intermediate mass. The statistical multifragmentation model has been used for many years to describe the distribution of these fragments. An extension of the statistical multifragmentation model to include partial widths and lifetimes for emission, interprets the fragmentation process as the near simultaneous limit of a series of sequential binary decays. In this extension, the expression describing intermediate mass fragment emission is almost identical to that of light particle emission. At lower temperatures, similar expressions have been shown to furnish a good description of very light intermediate mass fragment emission. However, this is usually not considered a good approximation to the emission of heavier fragments. These emissions seem to be determined by the characteristics of the system at the saddle-point and its subsequent dynamical evolution rather than by the scission point. Here, we compare the barriers and decay widths of these different formulations of intermediate fragment emission and analyze the extent to which they remain distinguishable at high excitation energy.