Inference on fission timescale from neutron multiplicity measurement in ¹⁸O + ¹⁸⁴W

Abstract The pre-scission and post-scission neutron multiplicities are measured for the 18O + 184W reaction in the excitation energy range of 67.23–76.37 MeV. Langevin dynamical calculations are performed to infer the energy dependence of fission decay time in compliance with the measured neutron multiplicities. Different models for nuclear dissipation are employed for this purpose. Fission process is usually expected to be faster at a higher beam energy. However, we found an enhancement in the average fission time as the incident beam energy increases. It happens because a higher excitation energy helps more neutrons to evaporate that eventually stabilizes the system against fission. The competition between fission and neutron evaporation delicately depends on the available excitation energy and it is explained here with the help of the partial fission yields contributed by the different isotopes of the primary compound nucleus.