Study of the reaction step preceding sequential fission in the nuclear interaction (16.7Â MeV/u) 238U+nat.Au

The kinematical analysis of nuclear reactions between (16.7 MeV/u) 238U and nat.Au ions has been performed by using mica solid-state track detectors (SSNTD). The reaction products emanating from each isolated collision vertex were registered in the forward hemisphere with almost 2π angular coverage. It has been demonstrated previously that these tracks represent the second stage of a sequential fission process. In this paper the results of analysis pertaining to the first reaction step have been presented. Using a computer code based on the procedure of internal calibration it was possible to derive quantities like mass transfer, total kinetic energy loss, and scattering angles. It is shown that the mass flow and kinetic energy distribution between reacting partners interacting at different impact parameters during the first phase of the interaction decides the multiplicity of the final reaction products.