Measurements of fragment mass, charge and kinetic energy distributions in thermal neutron fission of ²³⁵U with a back-to-back ΔE-E detector system

Abstract

A simultaneous measurement of mass (M), charge (Z) and kinetic energy (E_k) distributions of fragments in thermal-neutron fission of ²³⁵U has been carried out using a back-to-back ΔE-E detector system. A pair of gridded ionization chambers filled with P-5 gas measured the energy losses ΔE₁, ΔE₂ of the complementary fragments in the gas, and the residual fragment energies were measured with a pair of semiconductor detectors. The four-parameter data were analysed to obtain fragment Z-distributions using the mass-momentum conservation relations to obtain M and then using the dependence of ΔE on E/M and Z. The charge resolution for the light-fragment group was determined at the gas pressures of 44, 150, 270 Torr and the best Z-resolution was obtained at 270 Torr. The data at this latter gas pressure were analysed to obtain the variances σ²_z of the fragment charge distributions for different E_k windows and this was compared with the measured variances σ²_Aof the fragment mass distribution as a function of E_k as obtained by twoparameter measurements of the correlated fragment energies. The dependence of the measured variances σ²_A, σ²_Z on E_k is considered with a view to learning about the degree of neutron-proton correlations in the nucleon exchanges taking place during the mass division in fission, in analogy with that used in the case of heavy-ion deep inelastic collisions (DIC). The variation of σ²_A/σ²_z with E_k observed in the present work, which is somewhat similar to that seen in heavy-ion DIC, implies that the fragment mass division in fission is governed by nucleon-exchange processes, where the degree of neutron-proton correlations is dependent on the total kinetic energy E_k. While for very large E_k the neutron-proton motion in the exchange processes is found to be uncorrelated, for lower E_k values the motion is seen to be correlated. Implications of these results regarding the applicability of fission models such as statistical model are pointed out.