A Multiparameter Nuclear-fission Experiment: Can All be Obtained at Once?

A large variety of experimental works has been done since the discovery of nuclear fission, aimed at studying different aspects of the phenomenon. Yet our comprehension of the fission process is not complete. This is, among others, due to a certain lack in multi-parameter experimental data. An example here is the correlation between fractional independent yields of fission products and neutron and gamma-ray multiplicities. Fragment-gamma-neutron measurements, especially if correlated with fission- fragment kinetic energies, give the complete set of observables and are therefore of interest from the point of view of modeling and understanding of the fission process. A two-arm spectrometer of fission products (STEFF) has been recently built at the Manchester University. In addition to the identification of masses from complementary fission products, by the double energy/double velocity measurement, the spectrometer is capable of delivering information on their nuclear charges, on the event-by-event basis. The spectrometer also comprises an array of NaI and may house a further array of neutron detectors. In such configuration, STEFF has been used at the ILL neutron guide at the benchmark experiment 235U(nth, f). Details on the experiment will be presented, results on the identification of atomic numbers in the light group of fission products will be demonstrated and the perspectives discussed.