Complex fragment emission in the reaction 197Au → 197Au at an incident energy of 15 MeV/u

For the study of the dominant decay processes in the reaction 15 MeV/u 197Au → 197Au in one-particle inclusive experiments the emission characteristics of all ejectiles in the mass range 24 ≤ A ≤ 197 were studied. The deflection function of the projectile-like fragments is for all energy losses at the grazing angle Θcmgr=27.5 degrees peaked and in fact even for scattering events in which the whole available kinetic energy was dissipated in the collisions. The systematic analysis of the velocity spectra shows that the lightest fragments are formed in double-sequential fission of the highly excited gold-like fragments from the first deep inelastic reaction stage before reaching of a global equilibrium. On the other side symmetrical fission products, which are part of the narrow branch of the mass distribution, are emitted in simple-sequential non-equilibrium fission. This simple-sequential breakup is very closely limited to excitation energies of 75 ≤ E* ≤ 275 MeV of the primary, gold-like fragments, while the probability for double-sequential fission above E* ≅ 200 MeV increases very strongly. Contrarily to equilibrated compound-nucleus fission these processes are characterized by a in the source system strongly anisotropic angular distribution with distinct foreward/backward asymmetry and by an extremely asymmetric mass split. The study of the mass distribution shows that non-equilibrium fission at 15 MeV/u is both in view of the reaction cross section and regarding the creation of the complex fragments is the dominant decay process. The integral cross section of the broad four-body distribution corresponds to 60% of the total reaction cross section; the integral cross section of the narrow three-body distribution corresponds to 10%. (orig./HSI)