Semi-empirical determination of the shell correction temperature and spin dependence by means of nuclear fission

Abstract

We study the temperature and angular momentum dependence of the shell effects in the fissioning nucleus by means of a theoretical analysis of the total fission probability. We find clear evidence of the disappearance of the shell correction to the fission barrier with both increasing spin and temperature and propose a general method to determine the level density at the saddle-point configuration. The results of the present study might explain the differences between the fission barriers extracted from the heavy-ion reactions and those obtained using light-particle induced fission.