True ternary fission and the rotation effect

Abstract

The concept of collinear spontaneous true ternary fission of 252 Cf is subject to critical analysis. The conclusion is that the collinear flight of the fragments turns out to be a natural and most probable mode. The collinearity arises in the model on the prescission stage as a result of the account of the principles of the collective Bohr?s model. It is partly destroyed at the post-scission stage of spreading of the fragments due to their Coulomb interaction, with the allowance for the spin effects arising at the moment of scission. The final angular distribution of the fragments is calculated by means of the trajectory simulations. The calculated relative angle of the heavy and light fragments is kept 180 • with an uncertainty within 0.4 • , which justifies search for a collinear tri-partition at the modern stage of experiment.

Comment on the relation between the collinear tripartition and the collective model of the atomic nuclei

“…At the same time, quite an unambiguous answer is published in Refs. [2,3]. It is shown that a configuration with displaced mean fragment cannot be realized in the case of fission of spinless nucleus of 252 Cf.…”

“…This question was also studied in detail in Refs. [2,3]. Perpendicular to the fission axis component of the initial velocity arises at the moment of scission due to big spins and large relative angular momentum of the fragments.…”

“…This violates the proportionality: the middle (ternary) fragment is pushed to the c. m. by the both outer fragments. This reflects, specifically, in its small final kinetic energy [1,2,3]. In turn, the middle fragment itself pushes both the side fragments out, which also works as to violate the proportionality.…”