Minor actinide fission induced by multi-nucleon transfer reaction in inverse kinematics

Abstract

In the framework of nuclear waste incineration and design of new generation nuclear reactors, experimental data on fission probabilities and on fission fragment yields of minor actinides are crucial to design prototypes. Transfer-induced fission has proven to be an efficient method to study fission probabilities of actinides which cannot be investigated with standard techniques due to their high radioactivity. We report on the preliminary results of an experiment performed at GANIL that investigates fission probabilities with multi-nucleon transfer reactions in inverse kinematics between a 238U beam on a 12C target. Actinides from U to Cm were produced with an excitation energy range from 0 to 30 MeV. In addition, inverse kinematics allowed to characterize the fission fragments in mass and charge. A key point of the analysis resides in the identification of the actinides produced in the different transfer channels. The new annular telescope SPIDER was used to tag the target-like recoil nucleus of the transfer reaction and to determine the excitation energy of the actinide. The fission probability for each transfer channel is accessible and the preliminary results for 238U are promising.