Large-scale fission-barrier calculations with the ETFSI method

Within the context of a project to treat all the nuclear aspects of the ast rophysical r-process on a unified microscopic basis, we have extended the E TFSI (extended Thomas-Fermi plus Strutinsky Integral) method to the calcula tion of fission barriers, and compared our results to a large number of mea sured barrier heights. With the force SkSC4, on which the ETFSI-1 mass form ula was based, we find that if the primary (highest) barrier is lower than 10 MeV, the error never exceeds 1.4 MeV, with either sign being possible. F or primary barrier heights lying between 10 and 15 MeV we probably overesti mate the height by around 1.5 MeV. It should thus be possible to use the ET FSI method to make reliable calculations of the experimentally inaccessible fission barriers relevant to the r-process. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.