CLUSTERING PHENOMENA IN FISSION AND FUSION PROCESSES OF HEAVY NUCLEI

Strongly coupled processes of deep inelastic scattering, quasi-fission and fusion are described concurrently with a common set of variables within the Langevin-type equations of motion. Shell effects on the multi-dimensional potential energy surface play an extremely important role in these reactions. This leads to the two-body (shape isomeric states in fission) and three-body clustering phenomena in heavy nuclear systems. Enhanced yield of the nuclides far from the projectile and target masses was found in the multi-nucleon transfer reactions due to shell effects. This suggests that the low-energy damped collisions of transactinide nuclei may be used as an alternative way for the production of surviving superheavy long-living neutron-rich nuclei.