Open Access

Volker Oberacker, Walter Greiner, Hans Kruse, William T. Pinkston

• Within an extended semiquantal theory we perform large-sized coupled-channel calculations involving 260 collective levels for Coulomb fission of 238U. Differential Coulomb fission cross sections are studied as a function of bombarding energy and impact parameter for several projectiles. In the Xe + U case, total cross sections are also given. We find a strong dependence on projectile charge number, PCF(180°)∼(Zp)6 in the region 50≤Zp≤92 for a fixed ratio E/ECoul, which might be helpful to separate Coulomb fission experimentally from sequential fission following transfer reactions. Since the cross sections are sensitive to the moment of inertia ⊖ at the saddle point, Coulomb fission can serve as a tool to investigate the dependence of ⊖ on elongation. The fragment angular distribution exhibits deviations from 1/sinθf which are pronounced at low incident energies. Our theory indicates that the recently measured Xe + U fission cross sections contain a major fraction of Coulomb-induced fission at E≤0.85 ECoul. NUCLEAR REACTIONS, FISSION Calculated Coulomb fission cross sections σ(Ep,θp) for 54Xe, 67Ho, 82Pb, 92U→92238U, fragment angular distribution, fission energy spectrum, mean spin value 〈Jf〉.