Brownian Shape Motion on Five-Dimensional Potential-Energy Surfaces:Nuclear Fission-Fragment Mass Distributions

Journal Article · Fri Apr 01 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.106.132503· OSTI ID:21550257

Randrup, Joergen ^[1]; Moeller, Peter ^[2]

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1. Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)
2. Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)

Although nuclear fission can be understood qualitatively as an evolution of the nuclear shape, a quantitative description has proven to be very elusive. In particular, until now, there existed no model with demonstrated predictive power for the fission-fragment mass yields. Exploiting the expected strongly damped character of nuclear dynamics, we treat the nuclear shape evolution in analogy with Brownian motion and perform random walks on five-dimensional fission potential-energy surfaces which were calculated previously and are the most comprehensive available. Test applications give good reproduction of highly variable experimental mass yields. This novel general approach requires only a single new global parameter, namely, the critical neck size at which the mass split is frozen in, and the results are remarkably insensitive to its specific value.

• OSTI ID: 21550257
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 13; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.132503; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
BROWNIAN MOVEMENT
FISSION
FISSION FRAGMENTS
GRAPH THEORY
MASS
MASS DISTRIBUTION
POTENTIAL ENERGY
RANDOMNESS
SHAPE
SURFACES
DISTRIBUTION
ENERGY
MATHEMATICS
NUCLEAR FRAGMENTS
NUCLEAR REACTIONS
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION