Equilibrium statistical treatment of angular momenta associated with collective modes in fission and heavy-ion reactions

The angular momentum effects in deep inelastic processes and fission have been studied in the limit of statistical equilibrium. The model consists of two touching liquid drop spheres. Angular momentum fractionation has been found to occur along the mass asymmetry coordinate. If neutron competition is included (i.e., in compound nucleus formation and fission), the fractionation occurs only to a slight degree, while extensive fractionation is predicted if no neutron competition occurs (i.e., in 'fusion-fission' without compound nucleus formation). Thermal fluctuations in the angular momentum are predicted to occur due to degrees of freedom which can bear angular momentum, like wriggling, tilting, bending, and twisting. The coupling of relative motion to one of the wriggling modes, leading to fluctuations between orbital and intrinsic angular momentum, is considered first. Next the effect of the excitation of all the collective modes on the fragment spin is treated. General expressions for the first and second moments of the fragment spins are derived as a function of total angular momentum and the limiting behavior at large and small total angular momentum is examined. Furthermore, the effect of collective mode excitation on the fragment spin alignment is explored and is discussed in light of recent experiments. The relevance of the present study to the measured first and second moments of the γ-ray multiplicities as well as to sequential fission angular ditributions is illustrated by applying the results of the theory to a well studied heavy ion reaction