Investigation of fine-structure dips in fission-fragment mass distribution: An asymmetric two centre shell model approach

The fission fragment mass distribution followed by neutron emission is studied for the Pb208(O18,f) reaction using the asymmetric two centre shell model. The measured mass distribution spectrum reveals new kind of systematics on shell structure and leads to an improved understanding of structure effects in nuclear fission. A detailed investigation of shell effects both in potential and cranking mass parameter has been carried out for explaining the observed fine structure dips (i.e., less probable distributions) corresponding to shell closure (Z=50 and/or N=82) of fission fragments and their complementary partners. The available energy states for the decay process are obtained by solving the Schrödinger equation and found that first-five eigenstates are sufficient in reproducing the observed mass distribution spectrum. An outcome of the asymmetric two centre shell model also completely favours the observed claim that “the total number of emitted neutrons between correlated pairs of fission fragments should not exceed 6”. A complete observed spectrum is obtained by adding the mass distribution yields of all 6-neutron emission channels. This suggests a possible importance of extending these calculations to get new insight into an understanding of the dynamical behaviour of fragment formation in the fission process.