Thermal Fission Pathways in ^{232}Th

Abstract

Two-dimensional thermal potential energy surfaces have been investigated for ^{232}Th using the finite temperature HF+BCS approach with Skyrme energy density functional SkM*. At low excitation energy, the calculated static fission path goes through families of triaxial and reflection-asymmetric shapes. With increasing excitation energy, the shallow third minimum associated with a nonzero octupole moment becomes washed out, and the static fission valley moves towards the axial and reflection-symmetric limit.