Narrowing the Gap Between Theory and Evaluations: Angular Momentum Distributions in Fission Fragments

Abstract

We present a microscopic framework for predicting angular momentum distributions over the full range of fission fragment masses and charges. For the neutron-induced fission of ${}^{235}$U and ${}^{239}$Pu, the obtained distributions exhibit a pronounced sawtooth pattern in average values, reveal a substantial isobaric dependence, and reproduce experimental photon multiplicities without adjustable parameters. These results demonstrate that microscopic theory is gradually becoming quantitatively competitive with phenomenological models.

Submission to the proceedings from the 16th Nuclear Data for Science and Technology Conference held in Madrid, Spain, June 2025