Fission dynamics of ²⁴⁰Cf^* formed in ^34,36S induced reactions

School of Physics and Materials Science, Thapar University, Patiala - 147004, India

^a msharma@thapar.edu

Published online: 29 January 2015

Abstract

We have studied the entrance channel effects in the decay of Compound nucleus ²⁴⁰Cf^* formed in ³⁴S+²⁰⁶Pb and ³⁶S+²⁰⁴Pb reactions by using energy density dependent nuclear proximity potential in the framework of dynamical cluster-decay model (DCM). At different excitation energies, the fragmentation potential and preformation probability of decaying fragments are almost identical for both the entrance channels, which seem to suggest that decay is independent of its formation and entrance channel excitation energy. It is also observed that, with inclusion of deformation effects upto quadrupole within the optimum orientation approach, the fragmentation path governing potential energy surfaces gets modified significantly. Beside this, the fission mass distribution of Cf* isotopes is also investigated. The calculated fission cross-sections using SIII force for both the channels find nice agreement with the available experimental data for deformed choice of fragments, except at higher energies. In addition to this, the comparative analysis with Blocki based nuclear attraction is also worked out. It is observed that Blocki proximity potential accounts well for the CN decay at all energies whereas the use of EDF based nuclear potential suggests the presence of some non-compound nucleus process (such as quasi-fission (qf)) at higher energies.