Conservation of Isospin in Neutron-Rich Fission Fragments
Abstract On the occasion of the 75 t h anniversary of the fission phenomenon, we present a surprisingly simple result which highlights the important role of isospin and its conservation in neutron rich fission fragments. We have analysed the fission fragment mass distribution from two recent heavyion reactions 238U(18O,f) and 208Pb(18O,f) as well as a thermal neutron fission reaction 245Cm( n t h ,f). We find that the conservation of the total isospin explains the overall trend in the observed relative yields of fragment masses in each fission pair partition. The isospin values involved are very large making the effect dramatic. The findings open the way for more precise calculations of fission fragment distributions in heavy nuclei and may have far reaching consequences for the drip line nuclei, HI fusion reactions, and calculation of decay heat in the fission phenomenon.