Charge distribution of fission products in the reaction 209Bi( 12C, fission)

Abstract

The yields of about twenty five fission products in the system 209Bi( 12C, fission) have been measured by γ-ray analysis without chemical separation, at excitation energies of 40, 53 and 66 MeV in the 221Ac ∗ compound nucleus. The data were used to calculate the most probable charge Z p for each mass number. On the assumption that Z p varies monotonically with A, simple functions were tested and two were found to account adequately for the data. These functions were used to calculate the mean number of emitted neutrons ( ν ) at each energy. ν increases with energy at a rate of about 0.054 neutrons MeV −1. The nature of the charge distribution in the primary fragments is discussed briefly.