First experiment on fission transients in highly fissile spherical nuclei produced by fragmentation of radioactive beams
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Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Laser-heating and Radiance Spectrometry for the Study of Nuclear Materials in Conditions Simulating a Nuclear Power Plant Accident
Published on: December 14, 2017
C Schmitt1, P N Nadtochy, A Heinz
1Gesellschaft fuer Schwerionenforschung, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany.
Abstract:
We report on a novel experimental approach for studying the dissipative spreading of collective motion in a metastable nuclear system, using, for the first time, highly fissile nuclei with spherical shape. This was achieved by fragmentation of 45 radioactive heavy-ion beams at GSI, Darmstadt. The use of inverse kinematics and a dedicated experimental setup allowed for the identification in atomic number of both fission fragments. From the width of their nuclear-charge distributions, a transient time of (3.3+/-0.7)x10(-21) s is deduced for initially spherical nuclei.
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