Systematic calculations of β-delayed fission probabilities using a microscopic framework

Abstract

The process of $β$-delayed fission ($β$DF) consists of a mother nucleus $β$-decaying to different states of a daughter isotope, followed by fission of the latter with a probability that strongly depends on the energy of the states populated in the $β$ decay. Studying this process experimentally can be challenging due to the typically small $β$DF probabilities. The theoretical framework presented in this work was developed to globally characterise $β$DF probabilities. This approach uses energy density functional based models to obtain the necessary inputs for the final probabilities, which are obtained through the nuclear reaction code TALYS. Calculations were performed for all isotopes with an experimentally measured value of $β$DF probabilities. Following the optimisation of the theoretical framework to better reproduce known data, a global RMS deviation of about two orders of magnitude was achieved, an accuracy that can be used to identify promising cases for future experimental $β$DF studies.