Nuclear scission and quantum localization

We examine nuclear scission within a fully quantum-mechanical microscopic framework, focusing on the nonlocal aspects of the theory. Using (240)Pu hot fission as an example, we discuss the identification of the fragments and the calculation of their kinetic, excitation, and interaction energies, thr...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2011-09, Vol.107 (13), p.132501-132501, Article 132501
Main Authors: Younes, W, Gogny, D
Format: Article
Language:English
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We examine nuclear scission within a fully quantum-mechanical microscopic framework, focusing on the nonlocal aspects of the theory. Using (240)Pu hot fission as an example, we discuss the identification of the fragments and the calculation of their kinetic, excitation, and interaction energies, through the localization of the orbital wave functions. We show that the disentanglement of the fragment wave functions is essential to the quantum-mechanical definition of scission and the calculation of physical observables. Finally, we discuss the fragments' prescission excitation mechanisms and give a nonadiabatic description of their evolution beyond scission.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.132501