A schematic reaction-theory model for nuclear fission

Abstract: The K-matrix formalism is applied to a schematic model for nuclear fission. The purpose is to explore the dependence of observables on the assumptions made about the configuration space and nucleon interaction in the Hamiltonian of the fissile nucleus. As expected, branching ratios in induced fission are found to depend sensitively on the character of the residual interaction, whether it is pairing in form or taken from a random ensemble. On the other hand, the branching ratio is not much affected by the presence of additional configurations that do not introduce new fission paths.