Fission fragment mass distribution in the 13C+182W and 176Yb reactions

Shell effects can play a prominent role in fission fragment mass distributions. For lighter systems in the region of A∼180-200, mass distributions were generally expected to be symmetric. However, a recent experiment showed that fission of 180Hg following electron capture of 180Tl leads to an asymmetric mass split. Recent calculations by various groups indicate that the mechanism of asymmetric fission could be very different in this mass region compared to the actinide region. To investigate the role of shell effects in this mass region, we have measured the fission fragment mass distribution for the 13C+182W, 176Yb reactions forming the compound nuclei 195Hg and 189Os respectively, at lab bombarding energies of 60, 63 and 66 MeV using the CUBE detector setup located at the ANU Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility. The experimental data were fitted with single and double Gaussian distributions. The results indicate an asymmetric mass split for 195Hg, whereas for 189Os, the mass distribution is well fitted with a single Gaussian distribution. (authors)