Mass distributions in the reaction of 240 MeV 12C with 197Au

It is interesting to study how the reaction mechanisms in heavy ion induced reactions vary with incident projectile energy, especially for energies near the nuclear Fermi energy. Very little radiochemical work has been published on reaction systems in the energy region between low energy heavy ion reactions (a few MeV/nucleon) and high energy heavy ion reactions (hundreds of MeV/nucleon or more). In this work, the authors have examined the mass distribution of 20 MeV/nucleon 12C + 197Au using radiochemical methods. The cross sections of about 250 nuclides were determined. Many of the fission products determined were members of the same mass chain, so charge dispersions could be obtained. The most probable atomic number Z/sub p/ = 0.417 A + 1.4. The Gaussian charge dispersions for all fission products were found to have similar values of the width parameter, 2sigma2 = 1.6. This width included fission reactions. Cumulative, scaled charge dispersion for all measured fission products is shown