Multicluster accompanied fission

In this process a heavy or superheavy nucleus spontaneously breaks into fou r, five, or six nuclei of which two are asymmetric or symmetric heavy fragm ents and the others are light clusters, e.g., alpha particles, Be-10, C-14, O-20, Or combinations of them. Examples are presented for the two-, three- , and four-cluster accompanied cold fission of Cf-252 and (262)Rf, in which the emitted clusters are 2 alpha, alpha + He-6, alpha + Be-10, alpha + C-1 4, 3 alpha, alpha + He-6 + Be-10, 2 alpha + He-6, 2 alpha + Be-8, 2 alpha C-14, and 4 alpha. A comparison is made with the recently observed Cf-252 cold binary fission, and cold ternary (accompanied by cu particle or by Be- 10 cluster). The strong shell effect corresponding to the doubly magic heav y fragment Sn-132 is emphasized. The most favorable mechanism of such a dec ay mode should be the emission from an elongated neck formed between the tw o heavy fragments. [S0556-2813(99)03906-0].