Intermediate Energy Reactions Versus Heavy-Ion Fusion: Light Particle Emission and Post-Saddle Friction in the Presence of Deformation Effects*

Abstract

Abstract A decaying nucleus undergoes a change in deformation when it fissions. This affects the particle emission in the fission process. Using the dynamical Langevin model, we investigate the role of deformation in the sensitivity of post-saddle neutrons and light charged particles (LCPs) to the post-saddle friction strength (β) for heavy nuclei 240Am produced with different initial conditions: (i) a low excitation energy E* and a large spin ℓ (provided via a fusion mechanism) and (ii) a high E* and a large ℓ as well as a higher E* but a small ℓ (provided in peripheral and near-central intermediate energy heavy-ion reactions, respectively). It is shown that deformation obviously enhances the sensitivity of post-saddle neutrons to β at intermediate-energy peripheral collisions and that for case (i), the drop of LCPs emission due to deformation makes post-saddle LCPs to be almost insensitive to β, but for case (ii) LCPs still have a significant change with β. Furthermore, we find that post-saddle LCPs display a greater sensitivity to β for near-central collisions than for peripheral collisions. These results suggest that given the deformation effects, to better probe post-saddle dissipation properties with neutrons (LCPs) in experiments, it is best to choose those excited heavy nuclear systems populated in peripheral (near-central) collisions at intermediate energies.