True ternary fission, the collinear decay into fragments of similar size in the 252Cf(sf) and 235U(nth, f) reactions

Abstract

The collinear cluster decay in 252Cf(sf, fff), with three cluster fragments of different masses (e.g. 132Sn, 52–48Ca, 68–72Ni), which has been observed by the FOBOS group in JINR, has established a new decay mode of heavy nuclei, the collinear cluster tripartition (CCT). The same type of ternary fission decay has been observed in the reaction 235U(nth, fff). This kind of “true ternary fission” of heavy nuclei has been predicted many times in theoretical works during the last decades. In the present note we discuss true ternary fission (TFFF) into three nuclei of almost equal size (e.g. Z=98→Zi=32, 34, 32) in the same systems. The possible fission channels are predicted from potential-energy (PES) calculations. These PES's show pronounced minima for several ternary fragmentation decays, e.g. for 252Cf(sf) and for 235U(nth, f). They suggest the existence of a variety of collinear ternary fission modes. The TFFF-decays chosen in this letter have very similar dynamical features as the previously observed collinear CCT-decays. The data obtained in the above mentioned experiments allow us to extract the yield for these TFFF-decays in both systems by using specific gates on the measured parameters. These yields are a few 1.0⋅10−6/(binary fission).