College 3 Seminar | Proton-induced reactions on 238U in inverse kinematics: probing fission through nucleon knockout

In this seminar, I will present a study of proton-induced reactions on 238U in inverse kinematics, performed at 540 AMeV with the R3B/SOFIA setup at GSI. The experiment provides access to the different reaction channels and, in particular, to the fission of the protactinium residue following nucleon knockout.

I will discuss how the excitation energy of the residual nucleus was reconstructed from the kinematics of the emitted nucleons and how it can be correlated with the charge distribution of the fission fragments. This provides a way to investigate the evolution of shell effects with excitation energy and to test different theoretical descriptions of this process. The experimental results will be compared with calculations based on the INCL and ABLA07 models.

Finally, I will show the measured cross sections for the main spallation-evaporation and spallation-fission channels and compare them with previous experimental data and theoretical predictions. Overall, the results provide insight into the interplay between nucleon knockout, nuclear excitation, and fission in relativistic proton-induced reactions on heavy nuclei.