²³³U mass yield measurements around and within the symmetry region with the ILL Lohengrin spectrometer

¹ LPSC, Université Grenoble-Alpes, CNRS/IN2P3, F-38026 Grenoble Cedex, France
² CEA, DEN, DER, SPRC, Cadarache, Physics Studies Laboratory, F-13108 Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, France
³ Institut Laue-Langevin, F-38042 Grenoble Cedex 9, France

^a e-mail: sage@lpsc.in2p3.fr

Published online: 15 March 2016

Abstract

The study of fission yields has a major impact on the characterization and understanding of the fission process and is mandatory for reactor applications. The LPSC in collaboration with ILL and CEA has developed a measurement program on fission fragment distributions at the Lohengrin spectrometer of the ILL, with a special focus on the masses constituting the heavy peak. We will present in this paper our measurement of the very low fission yields in the symmetry mass region and the heavy mass wing of the distribution for ²³³U thermal neutron induced fission. The difficulty due to the strong contamination by other masses with much higher yields will be addressed in the form of a new analysis method featuring the required contaminant correction. The apparition of structures in the kinetic energy distributions and possible interpretations will be discussed, such as a possible evidence of fission modes.