Energy density functional analysis of the fission properties of 240Pu: The effect of pairing correlations

We have calculated the potential energy surfaces for Pu-240 up to the scission point using the density functional theory with different pairing strengths to investigate the effect of pairing correlations on its fission properties. An enhancement in the pairing correlations lowers the barrier heights, isomeric state, and ridge between the symmetric and asymmetric fission valleys significantly. Moreover, it weakens the microscopic shell structure around the Fermi surface, shrinks the scission frontiers, especially for the symmetric and very asymmetric fission regions, and lifts the total kinetic energies (TKEs) for the symmetric fission region. It is also emphasized that the microscopic calculation qualitatively reproduces the trend of the distribution of the measured TKEs, especially for the positions of the peaks at A(frag) similar or equal to 132 and A(frag) similar or equal to 108.

Automated summary

This study investigates the effect of pairing correlations on the fission properties of Pu-240 by calculating the potential energy surfaces using density functional theory. The results show that an enhancement in pairing correlations significantly lowers the barrier heights, affects the shape of the fission valleys, and influences the total kinetic energy.