Compound Nuclei in Reactions with Heavy Ions

Vast experimental material on various compound nucleus decay channels, such as fission of excited pre-actinide nuclei, evaporation of nucleons and charged particles resulting in formation of final product nuclei, emission of clusters from excited compound nuclei, and formation of heavy and superheavy nuclei in complete fusion reactions, is analyzed within a single theoretical approach. Cross sections for fission and formation of final product nuclei after evaporation-fission cascade, angular distributions of fission fragments, emission cross sections and spectra of nucleons, light charged particles, and clusters are calculated. It is shown that the statistical model of the decay of excited compound nuclei allowing for shell effects in de-excitation product nuclei quite fully describes the structure features of individual compound nuclei and permits various characteristics of their decay to be distinguished and analyzed. Combined with dynamic models needed for description of the initial reaction stage, the statistical model provides a good basis for description of nuclear reactions with heavy ions at incident particle energies up to 10-15 MeV/nucleon.