Proceedings of the DAE-BRNS Symp. on Nucl. Phys.

60 (2015) 360

Effect of neutron shell closure in fission fragment mass

distributions of 206,210 Po
A. Chaudhuri1 ,∗ T. K. Ghosh1 , K. Banerjee1 , S. Bhattacharya1 ,
Jhilam Sadhukhan1 , S. Kundu1 , C. Bhattacharya1 , J. K. Meena1 ,
G. Mukherjee1 , A. K. Saha1 , Md. A. Asgar1 , A. Dey1 , S. Manna1 ,
R. Pandey1 , T. K. Rana1 , P. Roy1 , T. Roy1 , V. Srivastava1 , P.
Bhattacharya2 , D. C. Biswas3 , B. N. Joshi3 , K. Mahata3 , A. Shrivastava3 ,
R. P. Vind3 , S. Pal4 , B. R. Behera5 , and Varinderjit Singh5
1
Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, 1/AF, Bidhan Nagar, Kolkata 700064, India
2
Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, 1/AF, Bidhan Nagar, Kolkata 700064, India
3
Nuclear Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai 400085, India
4
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai 400005, India and
5
Department of Physics, Panjab University, Chandigarh 160014, India

In recent years, many theoretical as well [4]. A recent study [5] of the decay of 210 Po
as experimental investigations were conducted compound nucleus also indicated no signifi-
to understand if large ground state shell cor- cant shell correction at the saddle point. Since
rections affect the saddle point shapes of the fission fragment mass distribution is directly
nucleus and thus it’s eventual decay dynam- correlated to the saddle ridge structure for sin-
ics. The measurement of fission fragment an- gle barriered distribution, it would provide an
gular anisotropy of the N=126 shell closed independent signature about the role of shell
nuclei 210 Po showed anomalous anisotropy as correction at the saddle point.
compared to 206 Po which is not shell closed
[1]. The result speculated that the shell ef- An experiment to measure the fission frag-
fects survives at the saddle. However, it ment mass distributions of the compound nu-
was found that good agreement between the clei 206 Po and 210 Po, populated using 12 C on
194,198
anisotropy data [1] and the statistical model Pt targets was carried out at the BARC-
calculation could be obtained by taking multi- TIFR Pelletron facility with bunched beam of
12
chance nature of fission into account [2]. The C (58-78 MeV). Fission fragments were de-
pre-scission neutron multiplicity data for both tected with two large area position sensitive
206,210
Po required substantial shell correction MWPCs [6]. The detectors were placed at 48
in both 210 Po and 206 Po [3]. Both the angular cm and 37 cm from the target on either side of
anisotropy and pre-scission neutron data were the beam axis with their centers at an angle
analyzed within the framework of statistical of 45◦ and 121◦ to the beam axis respectively.
model. However, from dynamical calcula- The detectors were operated at a pressures of
tions based on the four-dimensional Langevin 3 torr of iso-butane gas. The flight times of
equation using a macroscopic potential energy the complementary fragments, the position of
landscape it was shown that both the angu- the impact points of the fragments on the de-
lar anisotropy pre-scission neutron multiplic- tectors, and the energy losses in the gas detec-
ity data could be well explained with purely tors were measured in an event by event ba-
macroscopic potential energy landscape with- sis. From these measurements, masses of the
out considering any shell effect at saddle point correlated fission events could be extracted as-
suming full momentum transfer from target to
projectile. Partial momentum transfer events
could be excluded from the folding angle dis-
∗ Electronic address: E-mail:ac@vecc.gov.in tribution. A Faraday cup and elastic events
collected by a silicon surface barrier detector

Available online at www.sympnp.org/proceedings

Proceedings of the DAE-BRNS Symp. on Nucl. Phys. 60 (2015) 361

800 210
Po
E
*
=44.5 MeV 206
Po
*
E =44.6 MeV 2.0k excitation energies (shown by dotted lines in
600
1.5k Fig. 2(a)(b)).
400 1.0k

200 500.0 16 206 (a)

Po
Counts

Counts
14 Theoritical prediction

u
0 0.0

210 E
*
=55.8 MeV 206
* 12
E =56.8 MeV
Po Po 4k
600 10
3k
8
400
2k
16 210
Po
(b)

200
1k 14 Theoritical prediction

12

u
0 0
30 60 90 120 150 180 60 90 120 150 180
10
Mass (u) Mass (u) 8
35 40 45 50 55 60 65
Excitation energy (MeV)
FIG. 1: Measured of fragment mass distributions
at different excitation energies. Single Gaussian
fits are shown by solid (red) lines. Theoretical fits FIG. 2: (a),(b):Variation of the standard devia-
are shown by the dashed (blue) lines. tion of the fitted mass distribution with excita-
tion energy. The standard deviations calculated
placed at 15◦ were used for beam flux moni- theoretically were shown by dotted lines.
toring and normalization. The extracted mass
distributions are all found to be symmetric It is thus clearly evident that there is no
and were fitted with a symmetric Gaussian. anomaly between fragment mass distributions
The mass distribution and their fits are shown of the two systems, 206,210 Po. Experimentally,
in Fig. 1 (red line) at a few representative ex- they are symmetric without any appreciable
citation energies. change of shape in the whole range of excita-
As the fission barriers are single peaked for tion energy under consideration. The mass
both the systems, the measured mass distribu- distributions obtained theoretically without
tions were reproduced theoretically using the incorporating shell correction are able to re-
Finite Range Liquid Drop Model (FRLDM) produce the respective experimental data in
formulation, considering only realistic macro- both cases indicating the absence of shell cor-
scopic potential without any microscopic shell rection at saddle.
effect. The nuclear shapes were defined in two We are thankful to the staff members of
dimensions with Funny Hill parameters [7], the BARC-TIFR Pelletron for providing good
elongation (c) and mass-asymmetry (α). The quality of pulsed beam required for the exper-
fragment masses at the saddle ridge were de- iment.
cided by dividing the compound nucleus at the
neck of the deformed shape, corresponding to References
a particular combination of c and α. An esti- [1] A. Shrivastava et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82,
mate of the fission fragment mass distribution 699 (1999)
was obtained from multi-dimensional Kramers [2] K. Mahata et al., Phys. Rev. C 65, 034613
formula for the fission width (2002)
[3] K. S. Golda et al., Nucl. Phys. A 913, 157
Γf = N (α)exp(−V (α)/T ) (1)
(2013)
where V (α) was multiplied with a constant [4] C. Schmitt, K. Mazurek and P. N. Nad-
factor B to take care of dynamical effects. tochy, Phys. Lett. B 737, 289 (2014)
It was found that this procedure reproduced [5] K. Mahata et al., Phys. Rev. C 92, 034602
the experimental data very well for both the (2015)
systems (shown by dashed blue line in Fig. [6] T. K. Ghosh et al., Nucl. Instrum. Meth-
1). The standard deviations of the theoretical ods Phys. Res. A 540 285 (2005).
mass distributions are also found to reproduce [7] M. Brack et al., Rev. Mod. Phys. 44, 320
the experimental data reasonably well at all (1972)

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