Thesis (MMil)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / Includes bibliography / Nuclear ssion is commonly known as a process where a heavy nucleus such as Uranium
or Thorium decays into two fragments of roughly equal mass. On occasion however, instead
of decay into two parts a process known as binary ssion, the nucleus can decay
into three fragments. In this decay channel known as ternary ssion, the nucleus splits
into three fragments with the third particle being too light compared to the main ssion
fragments. There are also instances where heavy nuclei split into three fragments of comparable
masses, the so called \true ternary ssion" as was predicted by the theoretical
calculations of Strutinsky [Str63]. While theoretical predictions hold promises for this decay
mode, experimental attempts had little success in proving the existence of true ternary
ssion in low energy ssion. The challenges and di culties faced by experimentalist in
con rming the existence of true ternary ssion also proved that this ssion mode is a very
rare phenomenon.
This thesis is devoted to the investigation of ternary ssion know as collinear cluster tripartition
(CCT) in spontaneous ssion of 252Cf, and the design and development of two
time-of-
ight spectrometers aimed at identifying all collinear multi-body decay partners
directly. Prior to this study the only technique that was used at identifying decay partners
in CCT was the \missing mass" approach. In this approach only two partners are identi ed
directly with the third partner being identi ed by subtracting the two observed partners
from the initial mass of the nucleus.
The experimental results from the two spectrometer setups showed that it was possible
to identify all three partners of the CCT channel. The results also con rmed the existence
of the so called \Sn lost" CCT mode which was already observed in earlier experiments. / National Research Foundation (NRF) / Joint Institute of Nuclear Science (JINR) / Financial support from Dr D V Kamanim / Dept of Science and Technology (DST)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:sun/oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/71924 |
| Date | 12 1900 |
| Creators | Malaza, Vusi David |
| Contributors | Jacobs, N. M., Pyatkov, Yu V., Kamanin, D. V., Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Sciences. School of Science and Technology. Dept. of Physics. |
| Publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en_ZA |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | vii, 76 p. : ill (some col.) map |
| Rights | Stellenbosch University |
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