Examining the stability of thermally fissile Th and U isotopes

The properties of recently predicted thermally fissile Th and U isotopes are studied within the framework of relativistic mean field (RMF) approach using axially deformed basis. We calculated the ground, first intrinsic excited state and matter density for highly neutron-rich thorium and uranium isotopes. The possible modes of decay like $\alpha$-decay and $\beta$-decay are analyzed. We found that the neutron-rich isotopes are stable against $\alpha$-decay, however they are very much unstable against $\beta$-decay. The life time of these nuclei predicted to be tens of second against $\beta$-decay. If these nuclei utilize before their decay time, a lots of energy can be produced within the help of multi-fragmentation fission. Also, these nuclei have a great implication in astrophysical point of view. The total nucleonic densities distribution are calculated, from which the clusters inside the parent nuclei are determined. %Most of the thorium isotopes are $\alpha$ emitters, where as some %of them have short half-lives. In some cases, we found the isomeric states with energy range from 2 to 3 MeV and three minima in the potential energy surface of $^{228-230}$Th and $^{228-234}$U isotopes.

Bharat Kumar, S. K. Biswal, S. K. Singh, S. K. Patra · 2015