FISSION AND LIQUID DROP MODEL

V Saikiran

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 Nuclear Fission
• After discovery of neutron in 1932 (Chadwick), the development in nuclear physics
developed rapidly.
• Bombard nucleus with neutrons to study the nuclear structure
• Creating heavier elements (the heaviest natural occurring element is uranium) by
bombarding atom with neutrons. The nucleus (after gaining some neutrons) will undergo
 decay. Thus the atomic number increases.
▪ This is how elements heavier than iron is produced in stars.
▪ (We will discuss this briefly in the nuclear fusion section.)

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 Nuclear Fission
Characteristics of nuclear fission
1. Energy released are larger ~ 100 MeV (much greater than  decay)
2. Many intermediate masses are formed.
3. Every neutron-induced process will produce several neutrons themselves. (chain
reaction)

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 Why nuclei fission?
• It is energetically favourable.
• The energetic preference can be
understood from the binding
energy per nucleon.
• Heavy nuclei can split into lighter
nuclei that have more tightly
bound nucleons.

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Analogous to -decay, Coulomb barrier inhibits the fission process.
A crude estimate of the energy of the final products:
238 119 119
Example: 92 U → 46 Pd+ 46 Pd

1 bound U-238,
𝐸 = −238 × 7.6 MeV = −1809 MeV

2 bound Pd-119,
𝐸 = −2 × 119 × 8.5 MeV = −2023 MeV

Final states share the extra 214 MeV of energy.

A ~ 119,
B.E. per nucleon ~ 8.5 MeV 5
Nuclear Fission
238 239 239 0 239
92𝑈 + 10𝑛 → 92𝑈 → 93𝑋 + −1𝛽 → 94𝑌 + −10𝛽 → ⋯ … … … … … . 𝑒𝑡𝑐

U bombarded with neutrons it was found that β active product resulted followed by chain of
β active products.
It is observed by O. Hann and F. Strassman in 1939 that the product nucleus (β active) has 2
large fragments and they are Ba and Kr.
This process of breaking of the heavy nucleus into 2 roughly equal parts by
neutron/proton/deuteron/electron/gamma particle/alpha particle bombardment is known as
nuclear fission.
Ex
63
29𝐶𝑢 + 11𝑝 → 24
11𝑁𝑎 + 39
19 𝐾 + 1
0𝑛
 Energy Release in Fission
EB for middle of the periodic table is 8.5 MeV/nucleon
So fission of a nucleus a huge amount of energy will be released r+r
Fission of a nucleus with A = 240 for which EB = 7.6 MeV/nucleon
Then by fission it breaks in two medium kind of nuclei with A = 120 and A = 120
Therefore energy released = 2 x 120 x 8.5 – 240 x 7.6 = 216 MeV
The sum of the radii nuclei after separation is equal to the coulomb repulsion energy
Then coulomb repulsion energy is given by

−19 2
𝑍1 𝑍2 𝑒 2 52×40× 1.6×10 ×9×109
𝐸𝑐 = = 𝑀𝑒𝑉
4𝜋𝜖0 𝑑 1.5×10−14 ×1.6×10−13
𝐸𝑐 = 200 𝑀𝑒𝑉
This is the energy released in fission as a result of coulomb repulsion
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 Understanding fission using the semi-empirical mass formula
(spontaneous fission)
• Examine the effects on the binding energy of an initially spherical nucleus that is
gradually stretched.

• The volume is kept constant during the stretching.

• Surface, Coulomb terms (originally calculated using spherical symmetry) will be affected
by the stretching.

• We assume that the stretched shape is an ellipsoid (to be exact, a spheroid.).

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Spontaneous fission
Most of the heavy nuclei undergo spontaneous fission M(Z,A) → 2 M(Z/2, A/2)

𝑍 𝐴
𝐸𝑓 = 𝑀(𝑍, 𝐴) − 2𝑀 , 𝑐2 From semi empirical mass formula
2 2 we can write masses as

2 𝑍2 (𝐴 − 2𝑍)2
𝑀 𝑍, 𝐴 = 𝑍𝑀𝐻 + 𝐴 − 𝑍 𝑀𝑁 − 𝑎𝑣 𝐴 + 𝑎𝑠 𝐴3 + 𝑎𝑐 1 + 𝑎𝑎 𝐴
𝐴 3

2 1
2 − 2 −1
𝑍 𝐴 1 1 𝑎𝑣 𝐴 𝐴 3 𝑍 𝐴 3 𝐴 𝐴
𝑀 , = 𝑍𝑀𝐻 + 𝐴 − 𝑍 𝑀𝑁 − + 𝑎𝑠 + 𝑎𝑐 + 𝑎𝑎 −𝑍
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

2 1
2 −3
2 𝐴 3 𝑍2 𝑍 𝐴
𝐸𝑓 = 𝑎𝑠 𝐴3 −2 + 𝑎𝑐 1−2 2 𝑐2
2 2
𝐴 3 9
 2 1
2 −
2 𝐴 3 𝑍2 𝑍 𝐴 3
𝐸𝑓 = 𝑎𝑠 𝐴3 −2 + 𝑎𝑐 1−2 2 𝑀𝑒𝑉
2 2
𝐴 3

2 𝑍2 Surface BE(as) 13 MeV

𝐸𝑓 = −3.42𝐴3 + 0.22 1 Coulomb BE (ac) 0.595 MeV
𝐴3
i.e, the splitting effect depends on the coulomb energy and surface energy
This is expected because the division of nucleus changes
1) The separation b/n proton groups and reduction in coulomb energy
2) The total surface increases and so surface energy increases
Therefore for spontaneous fission
2 𝑍2 𝑍2
𝐸𝑓 > 0 −3.42𝐴3 + 0.22 1 ≥0 ≥ 15
𝐴3 𝐴
This shows that fission should be energetically possible for nuclei with mass number 𝐴 ≥ 85 but the
slow neutron fission does not takes place with even many heavy nuclei
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Why ??
 Coulomb potential barrier at the separation of fragments is not included because the product nuclei
have additional coulomb energy because of their charges. Let Eb is the coulomb potential barrier energy
given by Z/2
Z/2
A,Z A/2 A/2

1 2 2 R+ R
2𝑍 𝑒 𝑍2𝑒2 𝑍2𝑒2 𝑍2
𝐸𝑏 = = = 1 = 0.15 1 𝑀𝑒𝑉
4𝜋𝜖0 2𝑅 32𝜋𝜖0 𝑅
𝐴 3 𝐴3
32𝜋𝜖0 𝑅0
2
Fission takes place i.e, the unstable nucleus breaks into two fragments if 𝐸𝑓 > 𝐸𝑏

𝐼𝑓 𝐸𝑓 < 𝐸𝑏 then the nucleus is stable and will not break into products
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𝑍2 𝑍2
Therefore the condition for stability is 𝐸𝑏 − 𝐸𝑓 ≥ 0 0.15 1 + 3.42𝐴 − 0.22
3 1 ≥0
𝐴3 𝐴3
2
𝑍2 𝑍2
3.42𝐴 − 0.07
3 1 ≥0 ≤ 49 A~250
𝐴
𝐴3
𝑍2
For a nucleus the closer the value of to 50 the shorter will be the half life for spontaneous fission. As A>250
𝐴
nuclei satisfy this they are highly unstable and their life time is less than 10-12 sec or less. 11
 Liquid Drop Model (Deformation of liquid drop)
• Fission can be explained by liquid drop model
• Incident neutron combines with nucleus to form highly energetic compound nucleus (C*)
• The C* extra energy is partly the KE of neutron but largely the added BE of incident neutron
• This excess energy creates oscillations in the drop which tend to distort the spherical shape of the
drop and so the drop may become ellipsoidal in shape
• The surface tension forces tend to make the drop return to the original shape, while excitation
energy tends to distort the shape still further
• If the excitation energy is sufficiently large the drop may attain the shape of the dumb-bell
• If oscillations become too violent critical state stage is reached then the final fission into stage is
inevitable.
Z1 n
n
Dumb-bell Critical State
Spherical Ellipsoidal n
Z2
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 • So a threshold energy is needed such that from critical state the nucleus goes to a never returned to
normal state. • The PE of the drop in different stages is calculated as a function
𝐸𝑓 > 𝐸𝑏 of degree of deformation (r)
C • Where r is the separation of two centres of the fragments
𝐸𝑏 ECD
• Region I Completely separated and PE is simply the
PE (MeV)

D
electrostatic coulomb energy resulting from the mutual
repulsion of 2 +vely charged fragments
𝐸𝑓 < 𝐸𝑏
• Region II r=2R when the two fragments just
touch 𝐸 < 𝐸𝐶𝐷 Potential of surface forces
• At rc (the critical distance) where PE curve has
maximum (Eb). The required barrier height

rc II prevents the spontaneous fission with Ef > 0.

III I
2R • An excess energy𝐸𝑎 = 𝐸𝑏 − 𝐸𝑓 is required to
r 13
activate the fission process.
For small deformation,
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2 2
• Surface energy increases by 𝐸𝑠 = 𝑎2 𝐴 3 1 + 𝛿 +⋯ .
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𝑍2 1 2
• Coulomb energy decreases by 𝐸𝑐 = 𝑎3 1 1− 𝛿 +⋯ .
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𝐴3

The difference in energy (between spherical and ellipsoid) is given by

2 2 1 −
1
Δ𝐸 = 𝐵 𝛿 − 𝐵 𝛿 = 0 ≈ − 𝑎2 𝐴3 + 𝑎3 𝑍 2 𝐴 3 𝛿 2
5 5

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