Isoscaling Studies of Fission - a Sensitive Probe into the Dynamics of Scission

The fragment yield ratios were investigated in the fission of 238,233U targets induced by 14 MeV neutrons. The isoscaling behavior was typically observed for the isotopic chains of fragments ranging from the proton-rich to the most neutron-rich ones. The observed high sensitivity of neutron-rich heavy fragments to the target neutron content suggests fission as a source of neutron-rich heavy nuclei for present and future rare ion beam facilities, allowing studies of nuclear properties towards the neutron drip-line and investigations of the conditions for nucleosynthesis of heavy nuclei. The breakdowns of the isoscaling behavior around N=62 and N=80 manifest the effect of two shell closures on the dynamics of scission. The shell closure around N=64 can be explained by the deformed shell. The investigation of isoscaling in the spontaneous fission of 248,244Cm further supports such conclusion. The Z-dependence of the isoscaling parameter exhibits a structure which can be possibly related to details of scission dynamics. The fission isoscaling studies can be a suitable tool for the investigation of possible new pathways to synthesize still heavier nuclei.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, RevTex, final version, to appear in Phys. Rev. C as a regular articl

Tracing the evolution of the symmetry energy of hot nuclear fragments from the compound nucleus towards multifragmentation

The evolution of the symmetry energy coefficient of the binding energy of hot fragments with increasing excitation is explored in multifragmentation processes following heavy-ion collisions below the Fermi energy. In this work, high-resolution mass spectrometric data on isotopic distributions of projectile-like fragments from collisions of 25 MeV/nucleon 86Kr and 64Ni beams on heavy neutron-rich targets are systematically compared to calculations involving the Statistical Multifragmentation Model. The study reveals a gradual decrease of the symmetry energy coefficient from 25 MeV at the compound nucleus regime (E*/A < 2 MeV) towards 15 MeV in the bulk multifragmentation regime (E*/A > 4 MeV). The ensuing isotopic distributions of the hot fragments are found to be very wide and extend towards the neutron drip-line. These findings may have important implications to the composition and evolution of hot astrophysical environments, such as core-collapse supernova.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

The decay time scale for highly excited nuclei as seen from asymmetrical emission of particles

A novel method was developed for the extraction of short emission times of light particles from the projectile-like fragments in peripheral deep-inelastic collisions in the Fermi energy domain. We have taken an advantage of the fact that in the external Coulomb field particles are evaporated asymmetrically. It was possible to determine the emission times in the interval 50-500 fm/c using the backward emission anisotropy of alpha-particles relative to the largest residue, in the reaction 28Si + 112Sn at 50 MeV/nucleon. The extracted times are consistent with predictions based on the evaporation decay widths calculated with the statistical evaporation model generalized for the case of the Coulomb interaction with the target.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Lett.

Heavy Residue Isoscaling as a Probe of the Symmetry Energy of Hot Fragments

The isoscaling properties of isotopically resolved projectile residues from peripheral collisions of 86Kr (25 MeV/nucleon), 64Ni (25 MeV/nucleon) and 136Xe (20 MeV/nucleon) beams on various target pairs are employed to probe the symmetry energy coefficient of the nuclear binding energy. The present study focuses on heavy projectile fragments produced in peripheral and semiperipheral collisions near the onset of multifragment emission E*/A = 2-3 MeV). For these fragments, the measured average velocities are used to extract excitation energies. The excitation energies, in turn, are used to estimate the temperatures of the fragmenting quasiprojectiles in the framework the Fermi gas model. The isoscaling analysis of the fragment yields provided the isoscaling parameters "alpha" which, in combination with temperatures and isospin asymmetries provided the symmetry energy coefficient of the nuclear binding energy of the hot fragmenting quasiprojectiles. The extracted values of the symmetry energy coefficient at this excitation energy range (2-3 MeV/nucleon) are lower than the typical liquid-drop model value ~25 MeV corresponding to ground-state nuclei and show a monotonic decrease with increasing excitation energy. This result is of importance in the formation of hot nuclei in heavy-ion reactions and in hot stellar environments such as supernova.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Symmetry energy and the isospin dependent equation of state

The isoscaling parameter $\alpha$, from the fragments produced in the multifragmentation of $^{58}$Ni + $^{58}$Ni, $^{58}$Fe + $^{58}$Ni and $^{58}$Fe + $^{58}$Fe reactions at 30, 40 and 47 MeV/nucleon, was compared with that predicted by the antisymmetrized molecular dynamic (AMD) calculation based on two different nucleon-nucleon effective forces, namely the Gogny and Gogny-AS interaction. The results show that the data agrees better with the choice of Gogny-AS effective interaction, resulting in a symmetry energy of $\sim$ 18-20 MeV. The observed value indicate that the fragments are formed at a reduced density of $\sim$ 0.08 fm$^{-3}$.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. C (Rapid Communication

The 63^{63}Ni(n,γ\gamma) cross section measured with DANCE

The neutron capture cross section of the s-process branch nucleus $^{63}$Ni affects the abundances of other nuclei in its region, especially $^{63}$Cu and $^{64}$Zn. In order to determine the energy dependent neutron capture cross section in the astrophysical energy region, an experiment at the Los Alamos National Laboratory has been performed using the calorimetric 4$\pi$ BaF$_2$ array DANCE. The (n,$\gamma$) cross section of $^{63}$Ni has been determined relative to the well known $^{197}$Au standard with uncertainties below 15%. Various $^{63}$Ni resonances have been identified based on the Q-value. Furthermore, the s-process sensitivity of the new values was analyzed with the new network calculation tool NETZ.Comment: 11 pages, 13 page