Ternary quasifission in collisions of actinide nuclei

The microscopic framework of time -dependent covariant density functional theory is applied to a systematic study of ternary quasifission in collisions of pairs of 238U nuclei. It is shown that the inclusion of octupole degree of freedom in the case of head -to -head collisions extends the energy window in which ternary quasifission occurs, and greatly enhances the number of nucleons contained in a middle fragment. Dynamical pairing correlations, included here in the time -dependent Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer approximation, prevent the occurrence of ternary quasifission in head -to -head collisions, and have an effect on the location of the energy window in which a middle fragment is formed in tail -to -tail collisions. In the latter case, as well as for tail -to -side collisions, the formation of very heavy neutron -rich systems in certain energy intervals is predicted.