Employing TALYS to deduce angular momentum rootmean-square values, Jrms, in fission fragments

Fission fragments exhibit large angular momenta J, which constitutes a challenge for fission models to fully explain. Systematic measurements of isomeric yield ratios (IYR) are needed for basic nuclear reaction physics and nuclear applications, especially as a function of mass number and excitation energy. One goal is to improve the current understanding of the angular momentum generation and sharing in the fission process. To do so, one needs to improve the modeling of nuclear de-excitation. In this work, we have used the TALYS nuclear-reaction code to relax excited fission fragments and to extract root-mean-square (rms) values of initial spin distributions, after comparison with experimentally determined IYRs. The method was assessed by a comparative study on ²⁵²Cf(sf) and ²³⁵U(n_th,f). The results show a consistent performance of TALYS, both in comparison to reported literature values and to other fission codes. A few discrepant Jrms values were also found. The discrepant literature values could need a second consideration as they could possibly be caused by outdated models. Our TALYS method will be refined to better comply with contemporary sophisticated models and to reexamine older deduced values in literature.