Super-short fission mode in fermium isotopes

Abstract

The so-called super-short fission mode, in which a nucleus divides nearly symmetrically into two unusually energetic fragments, competes favorably with the standard asymmetric fission mode for spontaneous fission of a limited number of nuclei near Fm264 but it quickly fades away at finite excitations. We investigate the energy-dependent competition between those two fission modes for even fermium isotopes from Fm254 to Fm268, using the Metropolis method to simulate the strongly damped fission dynamics being driven by shape- and energy-dependent level densities. The origin of the super-short mode is discussed and its effects on the fragment mass distribution, the total fragment kinetic energy, and the neutron multiplicity are calculated. Generally good agreement with the available data is obtained.