H and be Ternary Spontaneous Fission of 252Cf

Ternary spontaneous fission of ²⁵²Cf has been studied in two experiments with the Gammasphere detector array with light charged particle detectors surrounding the source. From α-γ double gated spectra, neutron multiplicity distribution were determined for related α ternary fission pairs. In going from binary to α ternary SF for approximately the same mass splittings (A≈104-146) the average neutron multiplicity decreases about 0.7 AMU. The data further indicate an enhancement of the octupole band in ¹⁴⁶Ba in the α ternary SF. In the first LCP-γ-γ experiment, the ¹⁰Be spectrum was cutoff below 27 MeV and in the recent experiment, below 18 MeV. For high energy (E > 27 MeV) ¹⁰Be ternary fission, the data indicate that the largest yields go via the cold process (zero neutron evaporation). This results is different from that observed for α ternary SF. In the recent experiment with E cutoff of 18 MeV, the ¹⁰Be ternary SF was observed for zero to 4n emissions. In some cases the zero channel appears to dominate and in others the 2n channel.