Direct Evidence of Washing out of Nuclear Shell Effects

Constraining excitation energy at which nuclear shell effect washes out has important implications on the production of super heavy elements and many other fields of nuclear physics research. We report the fission fragment mass distribution in alpha induced reaction on an actinide target for wide excitation range in close energy interval and show direct evidence that nuclear shell effect washes out at excitation energy ~40 MeV. Calculation shows that second peak of the fission barrier also vanishes around similar excitation energy.

Sharp change over from compound nuclear fission to shape dependent quasi fission

Fission fragment mass distribution has been measured from the decay of $^{246}$Bk nucleus populating via two entrance channels with slight difference in mass asymmetries but belonging on either side of the Businaro Gallone mass asymmetry parameter. Both the target nuclei were deformed. Near the Coulomb barrier, at similar excitation energies the width of the fission fragment mass distribution was found to be drastically different for the $^{14}$N + $^{232}$Th reaction compared to the $^{11}$B + $^{235}$U reaction. The entrance channel mass asymmetry was found to affect the fusion process sharply.