Cold fission from isomeric states of superheavy nuclei

Correlations between the potential energy surface structure and the mass distributions observed in the production of superheavy nuclei are evidenced. The isomeric states are identified by spanning the multidimensional configuration space from the contact point of the colliding nuclei up to the formation of the compound nucleus. The available degrees of freedom are the elongation, the necking, the mass asymmetry, and the deformations of the two colliding nuclei. Using the macroscopic-microscopic model based on the Woods-Saxon two-center shell model, several minima in the potential energy landscape were revealed. The fission process from these isomeric states was investigated and the probabilities of realization of possible partitions were calculated in the WKB approximation. The inertia was computed in the framework of the cranking model. The identified correlations indicate that the mass distribution attributed to quasifission in previous studies can be alternatively explained as a cold-fission process from excited states.