Photofission in actinide targets

Fission fragment angular distribution of even-even and odd-mass targets induced by the bremsstrahlung radiation near fission barrier is one of the promising areas to obtain information on the effect of target ground state spin on transition state distributions. From the excitation energy dependence of the angular distributions, it is possible to characterize the saddle states in terms of energy and quantum numbers J and K of the nuclei. The author has carried out systematic studies on the measurements of fission fragment angular distribution of bremsstrahlung radiation induced fission of 232Th, 238U and 237Np in the energy range of 7.4 MeV to 9.2 MeV obtained from Microtron at Mangalore University,India. The effect of ground state spins of target nuclei and energy dependent cross-section near threshold have been obtained. The same were also estimated using the theoretical model which employs EMPIRE-II nuclear reaction code. These data are very crucial for Nuclear reactor designers as well as researchers interested in Photofission reactions.