Fission Barrier of Superheavy Nuclei and Persistence of Shell Effects at High Spin: Cases of No-254 and Th-220
Journal article, 2014
We report on the first measurement of the fission barrier height in a heavy shell-stabilized nucleus. The fission barrier height of No-254 is measured to be B-f = 6.0 +/- 0.5 MeV at spin 15 (h) over bar and, by extrapolation, B-f = 6.6 +/- 0.9 MeV at spin 0 (h) over bar. This information is deduced from the measured distribution of entry points in the excitation energy versus spin plane. The same measurement is performed for Th-220 and only a lower limit of the fission barrier height can be determined: B-f (I) > 8 MeV. Comparisons with theoretical fission barriers test theories that predict properties of superheavy elements.
Author
G. Henning
T. L. Khoo
A. Lopez-Martens
D. Seweryniak
M. Alcorta
M. Asai
B. B. Back
P. F. Bertone
D. Boilley
M. P. Carpenter
C. J. Chiara
P. Chowdhury
B. Gall
P. T. Greenlees
G. Gurdal
K. Hauschild
Andreas Martin Heinz
Chalmers, Fundamental Physics
C. R. Hoffman
R. V. F. Janssens
A. V. Karpov
B. P. Kay
F. G. Kondev
S. Lakshmi
T. Lauritsen
C. J. Lister
E. A. McCutchan
C. Nair
J. Piot
D. Potterveld
P. Reiter
A. M. Rogers
N. Rowley
S. Zhu
Physical Review Letters
0031-9007 (ISSN) 1079-7114 (eISSN)
Vol. 113 26 262505Subject Categories
Subatomic Physics
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.262505