Nuclear photofission studies with monochromatic gamma ray beams

Abstract

Two new research facilities will be ready for operation very soon (MEGa-Ray at Livermore National Laboratory) or start construction (ELI-Nuclear Physics in Bucharest), both providing highly brilliant _s13_s17947_s19 beams with so far unprecedented properties via Compton backscattering of laser photons from a high-quality, relativistic electron beam. With these intense, monochromatic _s13_s17947_s19 beams, a new era of photonuclear physics will be enabled. A new research campaign is proposed to exploit the unprecedented properties of these highly-brilliant, novel _s13_s17947_s19 beams on highly-selective studies of extremely deformed nuclei in the multiple-humped potential energy landscape of the actinides via photofission. With the unique _s13_s17947_s19 beam bandwidth of _s13_s17916_s19E/E = 10_s13_s178722_s193, we can aim at resolving individual resonances which could never be achieved so far due to the limited _s13_s17947_s19 bandwidth of bremsstrahlung beams. Exploratory, non-bremsstrahlung photofission experiments are going to be performed very soon at the HI_s13_s17947_s19S facility (Duke University, USA) to investigate the fine structure of the sub-barrier transmission resonances of the actinides.