Fission-fragment angular distributions for the 19F + 208Pb near- and sub-barrier fusion-fission reaction

Abstract

Fission cross sections and angular distributions have been measured for the 19F + 208Pb reaction at bombarding energies from 83 to 105 MeV. The fission excitation function is well reproduced on the basis of the coupled-channels theory. The fission-fragment angular distributions are calculated in terms of the transition-state theory, with the transmission coefficients extracted from the excitation function calculation. It is found that a discrepancy between the observations and the predictions in angular anisotropy of fission fragments exists at near- and sub-barrier energies, except for lower and higher energy regions where the discrepancy tends to disappear. Moreover, the anisotropies as a function of the center-of-mass energy show a shoulder around 82 MeV. Our results clearly indicate the considerable effects of the coupling on the sub-barrier fusion cross section and on the near-barrier compound-nucleus spin distribution, and confirm the prediction of an approximately constant value for the mean square spin of a compound nucleus produced in a far sub-barrier fusion reaction.