Measurements of Prompt Neutron Multiplicity Distributions in Correlation with Mass-Energy Distribution of Fission Fragments in Spontaneous Fission of 252Cf, 244Cm and 248Cm

Abstract

The number of prompt neutrons emitted in the fission event have been measured separately for each complementary fragment in coincidence with fragment mass and kinetic energies in spontaneous fission of 252Cf, 244Cm and 248Cm. Two high efficient Gd-loaded liquid scintillator tanks were used for the neutron registration. Approximately 3 106 fission events coincident with prompt neutron emission have been accumulated for each isotope. The mean neutron multiplicity, the dispersion and the covariance of the multiplicity distributions have been obtained as a function of fission fragment mass and kinetic energy. The neutron multiplicity data have been corrected for neutron registration efficiency, background and pile-up. Dependencies of the moments of the multiplicity distributions on the fragment mass and total kinetic energy for different mass bins, as well as mass and total kinetic energy distributions of the fission fragments are presented, discussed and compared for the different isotopes investigated. The results showed a different behavior of the moments of the multiplicity distribution depending on the fragment mass asymmetry that reflects changes in the dynamical effects for different fission modes.