⁴He, ¹⁰Be, and ³⁴Mg accompanied ternary fission of the ²⁴²Pu isotope in the touching equatorial configuration

⁴He, ¹⁰Be, and ³⁴Mg accompanied ternary fission of the ²⁴²Pu isotope is investigated using the three-cluster model in the equatorial geometry. Driving potentials and fission yields are calculated for each fragmentation channel. The obtained results reveal that in the ternary fission of the ²⁴²Pu isotope, the probability of crossing over the potential barrier is drastically decreased by increasing the mass of the fixed fragment due to the height of the potential barrier. In other words, the potential barrier for ³⁴Mg accompanied ternary fission of ²⁴²Pu in equatorial configuration is much higher than that for the ⁴He accompanied ternary fission of ²⁴²Pu isotope. The aim of selecting two light fragments and one heavy fixed third fragment is to compare the performance of the equatorial configuration for light and heavy third fixed fragments. The results also indicate that the ternary fission of ²⁴²Pu accompanied by ³⁴Mg as a heavy third fragment occurs with very low probability in the equatorial configuration. Therefore, the collinear configuration is completely preferred in this case. The comparison between relative yields for a variety of fragmentation channel in each group shows that the presence of double or near double magic closed-shell fragments is much favored in the cold ternary fission of ²⁴²Pu. (orig.)