Deformation and orientation effects in the ternary fragmentation potential of the 4He- and 10Be-accompanied fission of the 252Cf nucleus

Abstract

Ternary fragmentation by calculating the potential energy surfaces (PES) with the inclusion of deformation and orientation degrees of freedom for the 4He- and 10Be-accompanied fission of the 252Cf nucleus is studied. The most favored ternary fragmentation channels in the light charged particles (4He and/or 10Be)-accompanied fission of the 252Cf nucleus are predicted using the PES calculations. The sensitivity of PES due to the ground state quadrupole deformation (β2) and the orientation effects (90°–90° and 0°–0°) of the fragments are analyzed. The fragmentation channel 150Ce+98Sr+4He is predicted to be the most favorable ternary splitting for both the above orientations in the 4He-accompanied ternary fission of the 252Cf nucleus due to the large ground state quadrupole deformation of the main fission fragments 150Ce and 98Sr having β2 values 0.358 and 0.252, respectively. The fragmentation channel 140Xe+102Zr+10Be corresponding to the 90°–90° orientation and the fragmentation channel 134Te+108Mo+10Be corresponding to the 0°–0° orientation are predicted to be the most favorable ternary splitting in the 10Be-accompanied ternary fission of the 252Cf nucleus and again due to the large ground state quadrupole deformation of the main fission fragments 140Xe, 102Zr and 108Mo having ground state deformation β2 = 0.116, 0.369 and 0.365, respectively. Further, our calculations of the PES predict that the fragment combinations 186Hf+62Cr+4He and 180Yb+62Cr+10Be seem to be the probable configurations due to their higher deformations, inviting the attention of experimentalists. The present study reveals that the ground state deformation of the fragments and the orientation effects play a major role in identifying the most probable fragments in ternary splitting rather than the closed shell effects of the main fission fragments.