True ternary fission

The study of the ternary fission of nuclei has received new interest recently. It is of general interest for nuclear dynamics, although the process is very rare. In the present work, we discuss the possibilities of true ternary fission (fragment masses A > 30) in Cf-252 for different mass splits. These mass splits are strongly favored in a collinear geometry. Based on the three cluster model (TCM), it is shown that the true ternary fission into fragments with almost equal masses is one of the possible fission modes in Cf-252. For general decays it is shown that the formation of the lightest fragment at the center has the highest probability. Further the formation of tin isotopes and/ or other closed shell fragments are favored. For the decay products the presence of closed shell nuclei among the three fragments enhances the decay probabilities.