Spontaneous fission half-lives and their systematics

Spontaneous fission is a phenomenon exhibited by heavy nuclei, which can be a major mode of decay of nuclei of elements heavier than thorium and can be a determining factor in their stability. For purposes of this paper, spontaneous fission will be considered a process in which a nucleus breaks up into two approximately equal parts. The emission of light nuclei or heavy ions such as 12C, 16O, or 32S will not be considered. This radioactive decay mode is often much smaller than the spontaneous fission decay mode, although this is not true in all cases. Barwick noted that this might indicate that the assumed half-life for spontaneous fission of some older experiments might be partially due to heavy fragment radioactivity. Other than taking note of this potential correction to spontaneous fission half-lives, this decay mode of heavy fragment radioactivity will be ignored. Excited states of some heavy nuclei may decay via spontaneous fission. These so-called fission isomers will not be discussed here. Electron capture (EC) or beta-delayed fission is a process in which prompt fission of a sufficiently excited daughter state occurs following population by EC or beta decay. The fission activity will appear to decay with the half-life of the parent and was earlier confused in some cases with SF. This process has been discussed in detail in a review and will not be considered in this paper