Toward the microscopic description of the fission process
H. Goutte (GANIL)
11h GANIL seminar room (105)
a coffee will be served 15mn before
Fission is a complex process which highlights many nuclear properties. A major challenge in theoretical nuclear physics nowadays is the development of a consistent approach able to describe on the same footing the whole fission process, i.e. properties of the fissioning system, fission dynamics and fission fragment distributions. As a first step, a microscopic time-dependent and quantum mechanical formalism has been developed based on the Gaussian Overlap Approximation of the Generator Coordinate Method with the adiabatic approximation. First results (kinetic energy, fission fragment yields, and prompt neutron emission) obtained for low-energy fission encouraged us to perform new studies of fission along these lines with some additional improvements. For instance, at higher energies, a few MeV above the barrier, the adiabatic approximation doesn’t seem valid anymore, and intrinsic excitations have to be taken into account. For that purpose, a new theoretical framework called the Schrodinger Collective Intrinsic Model (SCIM) has been developed. Such an approach has the advantage of describing in a completely quantum-mechanical fashion and without phenomenological parameters the coupling of quasi-particle degrees of freedom to the collective motion of the nucleons.
In this talk, I will present the main challenges we are facing today and which we must solve in the future to better understand and describe the fission process. Then I will present the work done recently on the subject in the context of a CEA Bruyères-le-Châtel, Livermore, and GANIL collaboration.
