Langevin approach is proposed as an intuitive phenomenological framework to describe nuclear dissipative phenomena such as heavy ion reactions and fission decay. We present a method to integrate Langevin equation directly with the computer-simulated langevin force. Examples are given for a free motion of Brownian particle and for nuclear fission as a diffusion over a barrier.

A novel technique for accelerating the convergence rate of the iterative power method for solving eigenvalue problems is presented. Smoothed Residual Acceleration (SRA) is based on a modification to the well known fixed-parameter extrapolation method for power iterations. In SRA the residual vector is passed through a low-pass filter before the extrapolation step. Filtering limits the extrapola...

The concept of a mean first passage time is used to study the time lapse over which a fissioning system may emit light particles. The influence of the "transient" and "saddle to scission times" on this emission are critically examined. It is argued that within the limits of Kramers's picture of fission no enhancement over that given by his rate formula needs to be considered.

Strutinsky-type calculations indicate that the potential energy favors four channels in the nuclear fission of 252Cf. The connection of this finding with experimental results on the dis­ tribution of fragment mass, total kinetic energy, neutron multiplicities, and relative abundances is discussed. Similar calculations for 227Ac, 236U, and 258Fm show that the changing preponder­ ance of the four...

The shortest path problem is solved and applied to the calculations of half lives with respect to spontaneous fission of heavy nuclei. The dynamical programming method of Bellman and Kalaba is used to find the fission path in the d-dimensional space of deformation parameters. Fission half lives of heavy isotopes (100<Z<110) are shown and compared to the experimental data. 1. Introductory remark...

Photofission enables a unique capability for the domain of non-chemical space propulsion. An ultra-intense laser enables the capacity to induce nuclear fission through the development of bremsstrahlung photons. A fundamental architecture and performance analysis of a photofission pulsed space propulsion system through the operation of an ultra-intense laser is presented. A historical perspectiv...

The single-particle aspects of nuclear fission theories are investigated. The liquid drop model is shown to be essentially equivalent to an independent particle model with the requirement that particles occupy the lowest orbits. The consequences of relaxing this requirement are pursued and are shown to be significant. A natural framework is provided in which the mass asymmetry of fission arises...

We present some new results on heavy-element nuclear-structure properties calculated on the basis of the finite-range droplet model and folded-Yukawa single-particle potential. Specifically, we discuss calculations of nuclear ground-state masses and microscopic corrections, α-decay properties, β-decay properties, fission potential-energy surfaces, and spontaneous-fission half-lives. These resul...