Fission dynamics of²⁴⁰Cf^*formed in^34,36S induced reactions

Abstract

We have studied the entrance channel effects in the decay of Compound nucleus 240 Cf * formed in 34 S+ 206 Pb and 36 S+ 204 Pb reactions by using energy density dependent nuclear proximity potential in the framework of dynamical cluster-decay model (DCM). At different excitation energies, the fragmentation potential and preformation probability of decaying fragments are almost identical for both the entrance channels, which seem to suggest that decay is independent of its formation and entrance channel excitation energy. It is also observed that, with inclusion of deformation effects upto quadrupole within the optimum orientation approach, the fragmentation path governing potential energy surfaces gets modified significantly. Beside this, the fission mass distribution of Cf* isotopes is also investigated. The calculated fission cross-sections using SIII force for both the channels find nice agreement with the available experimental data for deformed choice of fragments, except at higher energies. In addition to this, the comparative analysis with Blocki based nuclear attraction is also worked out. It is observed that Blocki proximity potential accounts well for the CN decay at all energies whereas the use of EDF based nuclear potential suggests the presence of some non-compound nucleus process (such as quasi-fission (qf)) at higher energies. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.