1963•OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information)Requires access
THE ENERGY DISTRIBUTION OF FRAGMENTS RESULTING FROM THE SPONTANEOUS FISSION OF CURIUM-244
L.Z. Malkin, I. D. Alkhazov, A.S. Krivokhatskii, K.A. Petrzhak, L.M. Belov
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Abstract
The most probable energy of the light and heavy fission fragments resulting from the spontaneous fission of Cm/sup 241/ was found by A. Smith et al. (Proc. Second Geneva Conf. of the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, (1958) 15: P/ 690) to be 105.5 and 80 Mev; A. Ghiorso et al. determined the spontaneous-fission half life of this nuclide to be (1.4 plus or minus 0.2) x 10/sup 7/ years (Phys. Rev., 87: 163(1952)). This problem was again investigated and the energy distribution of the fission fragments was determined. A gas scintillation counter was used for measurements that were carried out with a preparation containing 0.243 microgram of Cm/sup 244/, 0.0058 microgram of Cm/sup 242/, and less than 0.046 microgram of Pu/sup 238/. The energy distribution of fragments resulting from the fission of U/sup 233/ by thermal neutrons was used to calibrate the counter. The contribution of the spontaneous fission of Pu/sup 238/ was found to be negligible; that of Cm/sup 242/ was taken into account by means of a suitable correction. On the basis of a spontaneous-fission half life of 7.2 x 10/sup 6/ years, it was found that the most probable values for the energy of the lightmore » and heavy fragments resulting from the spontaneous fission of Cm/sup 244/ are (11 plus or minus 4) and (86 plus or minus 3) Mev, respectively. (TTT)« less