SCISSION-POINT CONFIGURATIONS IN TERNARY FISSION OF CF-252 FROM TRAJECTORY CALCULATIONS

Trajectory calculations have been carried out in a three-point- charge model for the case of spontaneous ternary fission of Cf252 with a view to obtain the initial parameters characterizing the scission configuration. Without any a priori assumptions regarding the distribution of the points of emission of the α particle and the fragment velocity at the time of scission, the values of the initial parameters were obtained by fitting the observed energy distributions by making use of the method of multivariate analysis. It was found that there exist two points of α particle emission, nearer to either of the two fragments and off the axis joining the fragment centers, which reproduce the experimental distributions equally well. This result does not support the often made assumption that the point of α particle emission coincides with the potential energy minimum on the line joining the fragment centers. With the initial parameters thus obtained, an inverse Monte Carlo calculation was carried out to obtain various correlations between the final values of the energy and the angle of emission of the α particle and the fission fragment kinetic energy. The calculated results agree well with the experiments. The implication of present results on the emission mechanism of the α particle in ternary fission is discussed. NUCLEAR REACTIONS, FISSION Ternary fission Cf252, trajectory calculations, scission configuration. © 1978 The American Physical Society.