No Arabic abstract
In recent years, investigations of angular distributions of fragments in neutron-induced nuclear fission have been extended to intermediate energies, up to 200 MeV, as well as to a wide range of target isotopes. Using as an example the latest data obtained by our group for the reaction 237-Np(n,f), we discuss the specific features of fission fragment angular distribution and present a method for their simulation based on the code TALYS. It is shown that a simplified model reasonably describes energy dependence of the angular distribution in the whole range 1-200 MeV. The ways to improve the model are discussed along with the possibilities to use it for obtaining new information on fission and pre-equilibrium processes in neutron-nucleus interaction. We consider also the relevant problems of describing fission fragment angular distributions.
Several sources of angular anisotropy for fission fragments and prompt neutrons have been studied in neutron-induced fission reactions. These include kinematic recoils of the target from the incident neutron beam and the fragments from the emission of the prompt neutrons, preferential directions of the emission of the fission fragments with respect to the beam axis due to the population of particular transition states at the fission barrier, and forward-peaked angular distributions of pre-equilibrium neutrons which are emitted before the formation of a compound nucleus. In addition, there are several potential sources of angular anisotropies that are more difficult to disentangle: the angular distributions of prompt neutrons from fully accelerated fragments or from scission neutrons, and the emission of neutrons from fission fragments that are not fully accelerated. In this work, we study the effects of the first group of anisotropy sources, particularly exploring the correlations between the fission fragment anisotropy and the resulting neutron anisotropy. While kinematic effects were already accounted for in our Hauser-Feshbach Monte Carlo code, $mathtt{CGMF}$, anisotropic angular distributions for the fission fragments and pre-equilibrium neutrons resulting from neutron-induced fission on $^{233,234,235,238}$U, $^{239,241}$Pu, and $^{237}$Np have been introduced for the first time. The effects of these sources of anisotropy are examined over a range of incident neutron energies, from thermal to 20 MeV, and compared to experimental data from the Chi-Nu liquid scintillator array. The anisotropy of the fission fragments is reflected in the anisotropy of the prompt neutrons, especially as the outgoing energy of the prompt neutrons increases, allowing for an extraction of the fission fragment anisotropy to be made from a measurement of the neutrons.
We present the first fully unrestricted microscopic calculations of the primary fission fragment intrinsic spins and of the fission fragments relative orbital angular momentum for $^{236}$U$^*$, $^{240}$Pu$^*$, and $^{252}$Cf using the time-dependent density functional theory framework. Within this microscopic approach, free of restrictions and unchecked assumptions and which incorporates the relevant physical observables relevant for describing fission, we evaluate the triple distribution of the fission fragment intrinsic spins and of their fission fragments relative orbital angular momentum and show that their dynamics is dominated by their bending collective modes, in contradistinction to the predictions of the existing phenomenological models and some interpretations of experimental data.
Focused on the generation and evolution of vast complementary pairs of the primary fission fragments at scission moment, Dinuclear and Statistical Model (DSM) is proposed. (1) It is assumed that the fissile nucleus elongates along a symmetric coaxis until it breaks into two primary fission fragments. (2) Every complementary pair of the primary fission fragments is approximatively described as two ellipsoids with large deformation at scission moment. (3) The kinetic energy in every complementary pair of the primary fragments is mainly provided by Coulomb repulsion, which is explicitly expressed through strict six-dimensional integrals. (4) Only three phenomenological coefficients are obtained to globally describe the quadrupole deformation parameters of arbitrary primary fragments both for $^{235}$U($n_{th}, f$) and $^{239}$Pu($n_{th}, f$) reactions, on the basis of the common characteristics of the measured data, such as mass and charge distributions, kinetic energy distributions. In the framework of DSM, the explicit average total kinetic energy distribution $overline{TKE}(A)$ and the average kinetic energy distribution $overline{KE}(A)$ are consistently represented. The theoretical results in this paper agree well with the experimental data. Furthermore, this model is expected as the reliable approach to generally evaluate the corresponding observebles for thermal neutron-induced fission of actinides.
The intrinsic spins and their correlations are the least understood characteristics of fission fragments from both theoretical and experimental points of view. In many nuclear reactions the emerging fragments are typically excited and acquire an intrinsic excitation energy and an intrinsic spin depending on the type of the reactions and interaction mechanism. Both the intrinsic excitation energies and the fragments intrinsic spins and parities are controlled by the interaction mechanism and conservations laws, which lead to their correlations and determines the character of their de-excitation mechanism. We outline here a framework for the theoretical extraction of the intrinsic spin distributions of the fragments and their correlations within the fully microscopic real-time density functional theory formalism and illustrate it on the example of induced fission of $^{236}$U and $^{240}$Pu, using two nuclear energy density functionals. These fission fragment intrinsic spin distributions display new qualitative features previously not discussed in literature. Within this fully microscopic framework we extract for the first time the intrinsic spin distributions of fission fragments of $^{236}$U and $^{240}$Pu as well as the correlations of their intrinsic spins, which have been debated in literature for more than six decades with no definite conclusions so far.
Double-differential cross sections for light charged particle production (up to A=4) were measured in 96 MeV neutron-induced reactions, at TSL laboratory cyclotron in Uppsala (Sweden). Measurements for three targets, Fe, Pb, and U, were performed using two independent devices, SCANDAL and MEDLEY. The data were recorded with low energy thresholds and for a wide angular range (20-160 degrees). The normalization procedure used to extract the cross sections is based on the np elastic scattering reaction that we measured and for which we present experimental results. A good control of the systematic uncertainties affecting the results is achieved. Calculations using the exciton model are reported. Two different theoretical approches proposed to improve its predictive power regarding the complex particle emission are tested. The capabilities of each approach is illustrated by comparison with the 96 MeV data that we measured, and with other experimental results available in the literature.