Neutrons and fission

JAN 01, 1978

Experimental data on such studies as fission isomerism and structure in neutron‐induced fission cross sections show how the double‐hump fission barrier concept has returned fission to the mainstream of nuclear physics.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3001828

André Michaudon

The advent of the double‐hump fission barrier that occurred about a decade ago was one of the great steps forward not only in fission but also in nuclear physics in general. This new development brought the two disciplines into much closer contact after years of independence. The double‐hump shape of the fission barrier (figure 1) provided the clue to a unified explanation of a number of experimental results. Among these are fission isomerism, the phenomenon whereby a heavy nucleus can exist in a relatively long‐lived excited state decaying by fission, and the appearance of several types of structure in the fission cross sections of many nuclei as a function of incident neutron energy.

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More about the authors

André Michaudon, Service de Physique Nucléaire, Centre d'Etudes, Bruyères‐le‐Chatel, France and the Institut National des Sciences et Techniques Nucléaires.