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Title: Observation of new spontaneous fission activities from elements 100 to 105

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5187069· OSTI ID:5187069

Several new Spontaneous Fission (SF) activities have been found. No definite identification could be made for any of the new SF activities; however, half-lives and possible assignments to element-104 isotopes consistent with several cross bombardments include /sup 257/Rf(3.8 s, 14% SF), /sup 258/Rf(13 ms), /sup 259/Rf(approx. 3 s, 8% SF), /sup 260/Rf(approx. 20 ms), and /sup 262/Rf(approx. 50 ms). The 80-ms SF activity claimed by the Dubna group for the discovery of element 104 (/sup 260/104) was not observed. A difficulty exists in the interpretation that /sup 260/Rf is a approx. 20-ms SF activity: in order to be correct, for example, the SF activities with half-lives between 14 and 24 ms produced in the reactions 109- to 119-MeV /sup 18/O + /sup 248/Cm, 88- to 100-MeV /sup 15/N + /sup 249/Bk, and 96-MeV /sup 18/O + /sup 249/Cf must be other nuclides due to their large production cross sections, or the cross sections for production of /sup 260/Rf must be enhanced by unknown mechanisms. Based on calculated total production cross sections a possible approx. 1% electron-capture branch in /sup 258/Lr(4.5 s) to the SF emitter /sup 258/No(1.2 ms) and an upper limit of 0.05% for SF branching in /sup 254/No(55 s) were determined. Other measured half-lives from unknown nuclides produced in respective reactions include approx. 1.6 s (/sup 18/O + /sup 248/CM), indications of a approx. 47-s SF activity (75-MeV /sup 12/C + /sup 249/Cf), and two or more SF activities with 3 s less than or equal to T/sub 1/2/ less than or equal to 60 s (/sup 18/O + /sup 249/Bk). The most exciting conclusion of this work is that if the tentative assignments to even-even element 104 isotopes are correct, there would be a sudden change in the SF half-life systematics at element 104 which has been predicted theoretically and attributed to the disappearance of the second hump of the double-humped fission barrier.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC03-76SF00098
OSTI ID:
5187069
Report Number(s):
LBL-14050; ON: DE82013004; TRN: 82-017191
Resource Relation:
Other Information: Thesis. Portions of document are illegible
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English