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# Evaluation of the total photoabsorption cross sections for actinides from photofission data and model calculations

## I Introduction

### I.1 Relevant Framework

Recently, high-precision experimental data have been obtained for the photofission of actinide and preactinide nuclei at the Saskatchewan Accelerator Laboratory (SAL) and Jefferson Laboratory (JLab) Sanabria ; SanabriaPhd ; Cetina ; Cetina2002 . These data constitute both a challenge and an opportunity: a challenge to theory to reproduce them, and an opportunity to use them to determine the total photoabsorption cross sections for these nuclei. From these one can throw light, for example, on the concept of a “Universal Curve” for the photoabsorption cross section per nucleon for all nuclei Ahrens1984 .

At this time, the only theory capable of reproducing these data is an extension of the widely-known Intranuclear Cascade (INC) model CRC  to GeV photon-induced reactions Iljinov , including subsequent evaporation and fission. Almost three decades ago, the INC model was successful in describing experimental data obtained with bremsstrahlung photons Barashenkov . Later, the hybrid precompound-evaporation model approach of Ref. Blann1983  was successful in describing multiple photoneutron reactions below the pion-production threshold.

A related subject is the electromagnetic dissociation of relativistic heavy ions, where virtual photons are used to initiate photonuclear reactions Heckman ; Olson . Recently, the INC model Iljinov  has been applied to the electromagnetic dissociation of ultrarelativistic heavy ions Pshenichnov ; Pshenichnov2 ; Pshenichnov2001 ; Scheidenberger . In such reactions, nuclei are disintegrated by virtual photons over the wide energy range from a few MeV to a few tens of GeV. A Monte-Carlo code called RELDIS (Relativistic ELectromagnetic DISsociation) was devised to perform calculations for real and virtual photons across this wide energy range.

We now use the RELDIS code to describe the recent photofission data Sanabria ; SanabriaPhd ; Cetina ; Cetina2002 . This paper reports our results and their implications. The description of the RELDIS model of photonuclear reactions is given in Sec. II. Calculational results for nuclear fission probabilities and absolute photofission cross sections are presented in Sec. III. Evaluation of the photoabsorption cross section per bound nucleon, commonly referred to as the “Universal Curve,” from the actinide photofission data and calculated fission probabilities is presented in Sec. III. We summarize our findings in Sec. IV.

### I.2 Experimental Background

As first pointed out by Bohr and Wheeler Bohr-Wheeler  and echoed by Aage Bohr Bohr , the relative simplicity and directness of the electromagnetic interaction is very useful in the exploration of the process of nuclear fission. At the first stage of a photonuclear reaction, the absorption of a photon on a pair of intranuclear nucleons brings in only thermal energy and produces fewer changes in the structure of the target nucleus than, for example, reactions induced by protons or antiprotons. In the latter cases, the antiproton annihilation removes an intranuclear nucleon, or, respectively, the projectile nucleon can be trapped by the nuclear potential. Therefore, one can expect that following photoabsorption at low energies, most of the fissioning nuclides are similar to the target nucleus. This makes photofission studies much more transparent.

Over the years, photon-induced fission has attracted attention, and considerable progress has been made in experimental photofission studies. In the Giant Dipole Resonance (GDR) region, experiments at Livermore Caldwell ; Caldwell1 ; Caldwell2  and elsewhere delineated the giant-resonance parameters with high accuracy for eight actinide isotopes ($`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{239}\mathrm{Pu}`$, and the five long-lived uranium isotopes). At these low energies (from threshold to about 20 MeV), photofission reveals its simplicity, and the total photoabsorption cross section equals the sum of the single- and double-photoneutron cross sections plus the photofission cross section, since the high Coulomb barrier greatly inhibits the emission of charged particles.

In the quasideuteron and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}(1232)`$ regions, experiments at Saclay Lep-fiss , Mainz Frommhold1992 , and elsewhere extended the photofission data to intermediate energies for $`{}_{}{}^{235,238}\mathrm{U}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$. From a comparison of the photofission cross sections per nucleon for these nuclei with the total photoabsorption cross sections per nucleon obtained by other methods at Mainz Frommhold1994 , Frascati Bianchi , and Bonn Valeria , it was commonly believed that there was a “Universal Curve” and that the photofission cross section for these nuclei saturates the total cross section. The recent precise data from SAL Sanabria ; SanabriaPhd  agree well with the earlier data from Saclay and Mainz across the upper part of the quasideuteron region (about 60 MeV to the photopion threshold) and the lower part of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}(1232)`$ region (up to about 250 MeV).

The recent data from JLab Cetina ; Cetina2002  extend our knowledge of the photofission cross sections for $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{233,235,238}\mathrm{U}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$ across the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}(1232)`$ region and through the higher-resonance region (from 0.20 to 3.77 GeV). In this energy domain, photonuclear reactions seem to be more complicated. New advanced theoretical models must be employed to account for the greater number of reaction channels that are open during the first step of the reaction due to meson photoproduction on the intranuclear nucleons. Also, the understanding of the role of nuclear fission among the many other decay modes of the excited nucleus requires a well-founded theoretical model to describe such decay.

### I.3 Theoretical Approaches to Describe Photofission

One of the first calculations using the Intranuclear Cascade (INC) model that includes photon absorption at intermediate energies was that of Ref. Barashenkov . This calculation takes into account the channels of the $`\gamma N`$ interaction with production of only one or two pions, and thus can be applied at photon energies only up to 1 GeV. It was tested with old experimental data obtained with bremsstrahlung photons. Later, the model was successfully applied to early photofission studies Cherepanov ; Iljinov-Mebel ; Guaraldo .

INC model predictions Barashenkov ; Iljinov-Mebel  for the first pre-equilibrium stage of the photofission reaction were also used in fission probability calculations for $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$ nuclei by introducing the mean-compound-nucleus approximation Arruda-Neto . According to this method, the ensemble of excited residual nuclei created after the first step of a photonuclear reaction is replaced by a single excited nucleus with the average values of neutrons $`N`$, protons $`Z`$, and excitation energy $`E^{}`$. In order to explain the data on thorium, one needs to account for its higher nuclear transparency relative to uranium Arruda-Neto . Such a difference for nuclear systems of comparable mass was attributed to subtle details of the nuclear structure of $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$. The nature and origin of such differences still need to be explained. The fissility of $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$ was assumed to be saturated; that is, its fission probability $`W_f\sigma _f/\sigma _{tot}`$ was assumed to be unity.

Another phenomenological method was proposed in Ref. Delsanto  to describe the photofission of $`{}_{}{}^{209}\mathrm{Bi}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$ in the quasideuteron region, $`E_\gamma =30140`$ MeV. A special phenomenological factor, which selects the quasideuteron absorption that leads to photofission, was introduced and was found to be different for $`{}_{}{}^{209}\mathrm{Bi}`$ than for $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$.

In Refs. Deppman:2001 ; Deppman:2002  the photofissility of actinide nuclei at intermediate energies was considered within the multicollisional model for photon-induced intranuclear cascade process and the statistical neutron evaporation and fission models for deexcitation of residual nuclei. The fission probabilities for both $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$ were found to be unsaturated, i.e. very close, but still less than unity. However, the authors of Refs. Deppman:2001 ; Deppman:2002  considered their approach to be accurate only in a restricted range of photon energies, from 0.5 GeV to 1 GeV. This makes difficult direct comparison with the SAL and JLab data Sanabria ; SanabriaPhd ; Cetina ; Cetina2002 , since the data were obtained over a much wider energy range, from 68 MeV to 3.77 GeV.

Recently, the range of applicability of the INC model was extended up to 10 GeV Iljinov . The accuracy of the model was improved from the photoneutron thresholds up to 2 GeV, and new data obtained with monochromatic photons were used to verify the model predictions. The analysis of photofission reactions performed in the present paper is based on this approach, which is free of the simplifications and assumptions made in Refs. Arruda-Neto ; Delsanto  and is valid for a much wider region of incoming photon energies than the approach of Refs. Deppman:2001 ; Deppman:2002 .

The following questions are addressed here:

* Is it possible to describe the photofission of actinide nuclei over such a broad energy range, and if so, how good is this description?
* Does the relative simplicity of low-energy photonuclear reactions persist at photon energies above 1 GeV, where multiple photoproduction of hadrons takes place?
* To what extent does the excited residual nucleus, created after the first stage of the photonuclear reaction, retain the properties of the target nucleus?
* Can the total photoabsorption cross section for heavy actinide nuclei be obtained from the total photofission cross section?
* Is the concept of the “Universal Curve,” which has been obtained for $`A208`$ nuclei, also valid for $`A233`$ nuclei?
* What is the level of calculational and experimental uncertainties in the evaluation of the total photoabsorption cross section for heavy actinides?

In order to answer these questions, we use the model with its main parameters extracted from independent studies Iljinov ; Pshenichnov ; Pshenichnov2 ; Cherepanov ; Iljinov-Mebel ; golu94 ; bot90 ; JPB  of photon-, hadron-, and heavy-ion-induced reactions, in contrast to other approaches Arruda-Neto ; Delsanto ; Deppman:2001 ; Deppman:2002 , where only photon-induced reactions were considered. The present theoretical investigation is aimed at estimating the characteristics of the first step in the photoabsorption process and determining the total fission probability for such a reaction.

## II The RELDIS model of Photonuclear Reactions

### II.1 Initial Interaction and Intranuclear Cascade of Photoproduced Hadrons

The fast hadrons produced in a primary $`\gamma N`$ or $`NN`$ interaction initiate a cascade of successive hadron-nucleon collisions inside the target nucleus during the first, nonequilibrium, stage of the photonuclear reaction. The duration of this stage $`\tau _{cas}`$ can be estimated as the time a fast particle needs to cross the nucleus: $`\tau _{cas}\tau _o`$, where $`\tau _o10^{22}`$ s.

The INC model is a numerical method to solve the kinetic equation that describes hadron transport in the nuclear medium. Calculations of intranuclear cascades were performed by using a Monte Carlo technique. The nucleus is considered to be a mixture of degenerate Fermi gases of neutrons and protons in a spherical potential well with a diffuse boundary. By using the effective real potentials of nucleons and pions, the influence of intranuclear nucleons on these cascade particles is taken into account. The momentum distribution of intranuclear nucleons is calculated in the local-density approximation of the Fermi gas model. The distribution of nuclear density is approximated by a set of step-like functions. The cross sections of elementary collisions $`NNNN`$, $`NN\pi NN`$, $`\pi N\pi N`$, $`\pi N\pi \pi N`$, $`\pi NNNN`$,$`\mathrm{}`$ in the nuclear medium are assumed to be the same as in vacuum except that using the Pauli Principle prohibits transition of the cascade nucleons into the states already occupied by the intranuclear nucleons. A more detailed description of the INC model is given in Ref. CRC .

By means of the INC model, the process of dissipation of the initial photon energy can be investigated in detail. Part of this energy is transformed into internal excitation of the residual nucleus; the rest is released by fast cascade hadrons leaving the nucleus.

### II.2 Creation of an Excited Compound Nucleus

At the end of the hadronic cascade, some quasiparticles remain in the nuclear Fermi gas as “holes” ($`N_h`$), which are knocked-out nucleons, and particles ($`N_p`$), which are slow cascade nucleons trapped by the nuclear potential. In the INC model, the excitation energy of the residual nucleus is defined as

$$E^{}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_p}{}}ϵ_i^p+\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_h}{}}ϵ_i^h,$$
(1)
where the quasiparticle energies for particles $`ϵ_i^p`$ and holes $`ϵ_i^h`$ are measured with respect to the Fermi energy. The numbers of nucleons and protons of the residual nucleus are given by the relations

$$A_{RN}=A\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_c}{}}q_i^c$$
(2)
and

$$Z_{RN}=Z\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_c}{}}e_i^c,$$
(3)
where $`A`$ and $`Z`$ are the numbers of nucleons and protons, respectively, in the target nucleus, and $`q_i^c`$ and $`e_i^c`$ are the baryon number and charge carried away by the cascade particle $`i`$.

The moment when all fast particles have left the nucleus marks the beginning of the period of the establishment of thermal equilibrium in the residual nucleus with a duration of $`\tau _{peq}(10100)\tau _o`$. At the end of this period, thermal equilibrium is reached and an excited compound nucleus has been created.

Various criteria may be applied to decide whether the nuclear system has reached thermal equilibrium. According to the exciton model Toneev , the system of Fermi particles created after the cascade stage is not in equilibrium if the number of quasiparticles $`N_q=N_p+N_h`$ is less than the equilibrium value $`N_q^{eq}\sqrt{2gE^{}}`$, where $`g`$ is the density of single-particle states. Therefore, in the course of the equilibration process, pre-equilibrium particles may be emitted. In our calculations, the pre-equilibrium exciton model Toneev  is used to simulate pre-equilibrium emission.

Relative probabilities of the de-excitation processes are determined by the excitation energy $`E^{}`$ and by the mass $`A_{RN}`$ and charge $`Z_{RN}`$ of the residual nucleus formed after the establishment of thermal equilibrium.

Depending on the photon energy $`E_\gamma `$, various processes may contribute to the energy deposition. In the following, we consider step-by-step all of these mechanisms, with special attention to the amount of energy that is transformed into internal excitation of the nucleus.

Figure 1 shows the average excitation energy $`E^{}`$ and the fraction of $`E_\gamma `$ that on average is transformed into $`E^{}`$ in photoabsorption on $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$. The average values of $`E^{}`$ per nucleon of the residual nucleus $`E^{}/A_{RN}`$ also are shown in Fig. 1.

As shown by calculations, when a nucleus absorbs a photon in the GDR region ($`6E_\gamma 30`$ MeV) its energy is almost completely transformed into excitation energy $`E^{}`$. For a preactinide nucleus like $`\mathrm{Pb}`$, whose fission threshold is above 20 MeV, the de-excitation proceeds mainly through the evaporation of neutrons, since their separation energies are only about 7 MeV. Due to the high Coulomb barrier in heavy nuclei, proton emission is suppressed in the GDR region. Fission thresholds are much lower for the actinides; e.g., for U and Np, it is $`6`$ MeV Caldwell , and the fission channel dominates in the decay of such nuclei even at low excitation energies Caldwell ; Caldwell1 ; Caldwell2 .

Starting from $`E_\gamma =`$ 30 MeV, where the quasideuteron mechanism becomes important, up to the single-pion-production thresholds at $`E_\gamma 140`$ MeV, only a small part of the photon energy is converted (on average) into the excitation energy $`E^{}`$ of the residual nucleus. The rest of the photon energy is taken away by the fast nucleons originating from the absorbing pair. It was deduced from experimental data Lepretre3  that $`E^{}=43.4\pm 5`$ MeV for photoabsorption on lead at $`E_\gamma =70`$ MeV. The prediction of our model agrees well with this value, as seen in Fig. 1a.

The two-nucleon absorption cross section of a photon on a heavy nucleus $`\sigma _{\gamma A}^{QD}`$ is taken from the quasideuteron model of Levinger Levinger , as modified in Ref. Lepretre :

$$\sigma _{\gamma A}^{QD}=kZ(1Z/A)\sigma _d^{exch}.$$
(4)
Here $`\sigma _d^{exch}`$ is the meson-exchange part of the cross section $`\sigma _d`$ for deuteron photodisintegration, $`\gamma dnp`$ Laget , $`A`$ and $`Z`$ are the mass and charge numbers of the relevant nucleus, and $`k`$11 is an empirical constant taken from the analysis of Ref. Lepretre .

Although the cross section $`\sigma _d`$ decreases strongly with photon energy, the two-nucleon absorption mechanism competes with the single-nucleon photoabsorption channel $`\gamma N\pi N`$ even up to $`E_\gamma 500`$ MeV, when the wavelength of the incident photon becomes much smaller than the internucleon spacing.

An interesting effect concerning the photon energy dissipation above the $`\gamma N\pi N`$ threshold was noticed in Ref. Guaraldo . A pion of 50–100 MeV has a small interaction cross section with nucleons and therefore has a high probability to carry away a large part ($`m_\pi `$) of the photon energy. Only at $`E_\gamma 250`$ MeV does the average value $`E^{}`$ start to increase, as shown in Fig. 1.

The reliability of the model predictions for $`E^{}`$ can be tested by the comparison of the calculated first and second moments of multiplicity distributions of neutrons, $`N_n`$ and $`W_n=\sqrt{N_n^2N_n^2}`$, with the experimental data of Ref. Lepretre3 . In photoabsorption on lead, most of the neutrons are emitted via evaporation from excited compound nuclei, and both $`N_n`$ and $`W_n`$ are sensitive to $`E^{}`$. This test was performed in Ref. Pshenichnov2  and $`N_n`$ and $`W_n`$ were found to be described with an accuracy of 10-15% at $`70E_\gamma 140`$ MeV.

Above the two-pion production threshold, at $`E_\gamma 400`$ MeV, the photon-nucleon ($`\gamma N`$) interaction becomes more complicated because of the opening of many possible final states. We use a phenomenological model for the description of the $`\gamma N`$ interaction, developed in Ref. Iljinov . The model includes not only the excitation of nucleon resonances, but also both the resonance contribution from the two-body channels, $`\gamma N\pi B^{}`$ and $`\gamma NM^{}N`$ ($`B^{}`$ and $`M^{}`$ being baryon and meson resonances) and the nonresonant contribution from the multiple-pion production channels $`\gamma Ni\pi N`$ ($`2i8`$). Finally, when the photon energy reaches a value of a few GeV, multiple-pion production becomes the dominant process. A large number ($`80`$) of many-body subchannels are included in our calculation.

Since the cross section $`\gamma Nhadrons`$ is small compared to the total $`NN`$ or $`\pi N`$ cross sections, this leads to a large number of photons leaving the nucleus without producing hadrons in the case of direct use of a Monte-Carlo simulation technique. This is a natural consequence of the well-known fact that nuclei are highly transparent to photons (i.e., photons do not interact strongly). In order to reduce computation time, we simulate photon absorption in each event, but in this case we have to normalize our simulated results to the total photonuclear cross section to get the absolute fission cross sections.

At high photon energies, many hadrons are produced inside the target nucleus in the course of a cascade process. Due to the knockout of intranuclear nucleons by fast nucleons and pions, the slower particles pass through a lower-density region, thereby undergoing fewer rescatterings; this is the so-called “trawling” effect. As was shown in Refs. bot90 ; golu94 ; Lott , the trawling effect is important for a realistic description of reactions at projectile energies above several GeV. In the present calculation, we use a nonlinear version of the INC model golu94 , which takes into account the local depletion of nuclear density during the development of the intranuclear cascade.

In summary, as can be seen from Fig. 1, when the photon energy increases from the GDR region to several GeV, the nature of the photoabsorption process evolves from the excitation of collective nuclear degrees of freedom to the excitation of a single nucleon inside the nucleus. In the latter case, up to 95% of the photon energy is released in the form of fast particles leaving the nucleus. Nevertheless, the remaining energy deposited in the compound nucleus is sufficient for evaporating many neutrons and thus leading to fission, since neutron evaporation increases the fissility parameter $`Z^2/A`$. However, Fig. 1 shows only the average values; the entire distribution of excitation energy $`E^{}`$ is shown in Fig. 2. In high-energy photoabsorption the $`E^{}`$ distribution is very wide, since some of the reaction channels lead to strong heating of the nucleus by a multipion system.

As shown in Fig. 1, the excitation energies of residual nuclei produced in photoabsorption on lead, thorium, and neptunium are very close to each other, despite some differences in the masses of the target nuclei. Therefore, one can expect that the dramatic differences in fission probabilities in photoabsorption on such target nuclei are due to differences in fissility parameters for these ensembles of residual nuclei, rather than in their excitation energies. Figure 2 confirms this expectation. In Fig. 2, the values of $`E^{}`$ and the liquid-drop-model fissility parameter $`Z_{RN}^2/A_{RN}`$ are given for the whole ensemble of excited residual nuclei created after the cascade stage of photoabsorption at $`E_\gamma `$ values of 68 MeV and 3.77 GeV for $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$.

As one can see in Fig. 2, at $`E_\gamma =3.77`$ GeV, residual nuclei are created with very broad distributions in excitation energy, $`0<E^{}<300`$ MeV, and fissility parameter, $`26<Z_{RN}^2/A_{RN}<38`$. At higher photon energies, these broad distributions are determined mainly by the variations of the number of pions and nucleons participating in the cascade flow. Such variations are due to the wide variety of open channels in the primary $`\gamma N`$ interaction and in the secondary $`\pi N`$ and $`NN`$ interactions with intranuclear nucleons. Taken alone, the variation in the number of cascade nucleons due to different impact parameters in a photonuclear interaction cannot provide such broad distributions. Indeed, the impact-parameter distributions of photonuclear interaction events are similar for $`E_\gamma =68`$ MeV and 3.77 GeV; but in the former case, the distributions in $`Z_{RN}^2/A_{RN}`$ are quite narrow. This is explained by the fact that only a limited number of channels are open at $`E_\gamma =68`$ MeV, namely $`\gamma +(pn)p+n`$ and channels of the $`NN`$ interaction below the pion-photoproduction thresholds.

At higher photon energy, $`E_\gamma 1`$ GeV, the photoabsorption process reveals its complexity and the mean-compound-nucleus approximation used in Ref. Arruda-Neto  for fission-probability calculations breaks down. This is demonstrated in Fig. 3, where the fissility-parameter distributions of the residual nuclei are shown for $`E_\gamma =68`$ MeV and 3.77 GeV. Strictly speaking, the approximation used in Ref. Arruda-Neto  is not valid even at $`E_\gamma =68`$ MeV, since basically two types of photonuclear reactions occur: preferential removal of protons, which decreases $`Z_{RN}^2/A_{RN}`$, and preferential removal of neutrons, which increases of $`Z_{RN}^2/A_{RN}`$. Therefore, the ensemble of residual nuclei created at low energies, particularly below the pion-production thresholds, can be represented by a pair of “characteristic” compound nuclei. The first group of nuclei, whose values of $`Z_{RN}^2/A_{RN}`$ are less than that for the target nucleus, is created mainly via $`(\gamma ,p)`$, $`(\gamma ,pn)`$, and $`(\gamma ,p2n)`$ reactions, while the second group is created via $`(\gamma ,n)`$, $`(\gamma ,2n)`$, and $`(\gamma ,3n)`$ reactions. However, as shown in Fig. 3, this approximation for the ensemble of residual nuclei becomes invalid in the GeV region, where a very wide set of residual nuclei is created following the fast stage of photoabsorption. An example of such a distribution is shown in Fig. 4 for photoabsorption in $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$. In the course of the cascade process, the target nucleus loses up to $`30`$ units in charge and up to $`70`$ nucleons. Highly excited preactinide nuclei, like Pb or Au, can be created in photoabsorption reactions at high photon energies. Poorly explored nuclei with $`A`$ and $`Z`$ located between Po and Th are also represented in Fig. 4. In our calculations, we take into account the whole ensemble of excited compound nuclei without replacing it by a “characteristic” average compound nucleus.

### II.3 Decay of the Excited Compound Nucleus

As soon as statistical equilibrium is reached in the residual nucleus, the statistical approach for nucleon and light-particle evaporation and nuclear fission is an appropriate scheme for calculation of the relative probabilities of different decay modes of the compound nucleus. Such statistical decay of the compound nucleus is the slow stage of the photonuclear reaction, having a characteristic time $`\tau _{evf}\tau _o`$. Here we use the term “residual nucleus” to mean the nuclear residue formed at the end of the intranuclear cascade, while the term “compound nucleus” is used to describe a residual nucleus after the establishment of thermal equilibrium.

In the domain of modest excitation energies, which are typical for heavy nuclei, with $`E^{}/A_{CN}23`$ MeV, one can include the competition between evaporation and fission only; the onset of multifragmentation is located well above this range at $`E^{}/A_{CN}>4`$ MeV JPB . As can be seen in Fig. 2, there are no residual nuclei with $`E^{}/A_{RN}`$ exceeding $`1.3`$ MeV, even at $`E_\gamma =3.77`$ GeV. Therefore, we do not expect any contribution of the multifragmentation process to photoabsorption on heavy nuclei.

According to the standard Weisskopf evaporation scheme Weisskopf , the partial width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_j`$ for the evaporation of a particle $`j=n,p,{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{H},{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{H},{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{He}`$, or $`{}_{}{}^{4}\mathrm{He}`$ is given by

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_j=\frac{(2s_j+1)\mu _j}{\pi ^2\rho _{CN}(E^{})}\underset{V_j}{\overset{E^{}B_j}{}}\sigma _{inv}^j(E)\rho _j(E^{}B_jE)E𝑑E\text{ ,}$$
(5)
where $`s_j`$, $`\mu _j`$, $`V_j`$, and $`B_j`$ are the spin, reduced mass, Coulomb barrier, and binding energy of the particle $`j`$, respectively. $`\sigma _{inv}^j(E)`$ is the cross section for the inverse reaction of the capture of the particle $`i`$ to create the compound nucleus. $`\rho _{CN}`$ and $`\rho _j`$ are the nuclear level densities for the initial and final (after the emission of the particle $`j`$) nuclei, respectively. Natural units, with $`\mathrm{}=c=1`$, are used in this paper.

The Bohr-Wheeler statistical approach Bohr-Wheeler  is used to calculate the fission width of the excited compound nucleus. This width is proportional to the nuclear level density $`\rho _f`$ at the fission saddle point:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_f=\frac{1}{2\pi \rho _{CN}(E^{})}\underset{0}{\overset{E^{}B_f}{}}\rho _f(E^{}B_fE)𝑑E\text{ ,}\text{}$$
(6)
where $`B_f`$ is the fission barrier height. Masses and kinetic energies of fission products are calculated based on corresponding approximations Adeev  to experimental data which describe the transition from the asymmetric fission mode to the symmetric one, along with other features of the fission process. Since the masses of fission fragments were not measured in the experiments reported in Refs. Sanabria ; SanabriaPhd ; Cetina ; Cetina2002 , we do not consider such distributions in this work.

The decay of the excited compound nucleus is simulated using the Monte-Carlo method. The competition between the various decay channels at each step of the evaporation chain is determined by the relation between the partial widths for particle evaporation and fission, Eqs. (5) and (6), respectively. Finally, in order to calculate the fission probability $`W_f`$, the total number of fission events in a computer run is counted and divided by the total number of simulated photoabsorption events. Evaporation from excited fission fragments is also taken into account and was found to be negligible.

In the present paper, we also take into account the microscopic effects of nuclear structure in the nuclear-mass and level-density formulas, according to Refs. Ignatyuk75 ; Ignatyuk79 ; ILJ-MEB . Such effects reveal themselves as a noticeable difference, up to $`1015`$ MeV for heavy closed-shell nuclei, between the values of the measured nuclear ground-state masses $`M_{exp}(Z,N)`$ and those predicted by the macroscopic liquid-drop model $`M_{LD}(Z,N)`$ MS . Moreover, this difference in mass $`\delta W_{gs}=M_{exp}(Z,N)M_{LD}(Z,N)`$, the so-called shell correction, and the level-density parameter $`a`$ (used in Eq. (7) below) are strongly correlated. For closed-shell nuclei, the actual values of the level-density parameter are substantially lower than the average values of $`A/8A/10`$ MeV<sup>-1</sup>, and these values depend strongly on the excitation energy. Proper accounting for these effects, as well as for pairing effects, is important mainly at low excitations, for $`E^{}10`$ MeV. Although these shell effects are very pronounced at low excitation energies, they disappear for $`E^{}30`$ MeV ILJ-MEB ; Gaimard . Several phenomenological approximations of the level-density parameter were proposed in order to account for such behavior. Our calculations are based mainly on the results of Ref. ILJ-MEB , where the data on the level densities, decay widths, and lifetimes of excited nuclei with $`2<E^{}<20`$ MeV have been analyzed in the framework of the statistical model.

We use the Fermi-gas expression for the nuclear level density at excitation energy $`E^{}`$:

$$\rho (E^{})=\frac{\sqrt{\pi }}{12E^{5/4}a^{1/4}}\mathrm{exp}\{2\sqrt{aE^{}}\}\text{ ,}$$
(7)
where $`a=\pi ^2g_F/6`$ is the nuclear level-density parameter, which is proportional to the density of single-particle states $`g_F`$ at the Fermi surface.

Pairing-energy effects are accounted for by the substitution $`E^{}E^{}\mathrm{\Delta }`$, where the pairing energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is given by:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=\chi 11/\sqrt{A}\text{ }\mathrm{MeV}$$
(8)
with $`\chi =0`$, 1, or 2 for odd-odd, odd-even, or even-even nuclei, respectively.

The nuclear level-density parameter is a function of $`Z`$, $`N`$, and $`E^{}`$ of the corresponding nucleus Ignatyuk75 ; Ignatyuk79 ; ILJ-MEB :

$$a(Z,N,E^{})=\stackrel{~}{a}(A)\left\{1+\delta W_{gs}(Z,N)\frac{f(E^{}\mathrm{\Delta })}{E^{}\mathrm{\Delta }}\right\}\text{}$$
(9)
where

$$f(E)=1\mathrm{exp}(\gamma E)\text{}$$
(10)
$$\stackrel{~}{a}(A)=\alpha A+\beta A^{2/3}B_s$$
(11)
is the asymptotic Fermi-gas value at high excitation energies, and $`\delta W_{gs}(Z,N)`$ is the shell correction in the nuclear mass formula. The coefficients $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ correspond to the volume and surface components, which, along with $`\gamma `$, are taken to be phenomenological constants. We use the values $`\alpha =0.114`$, $`\beta =0.098`$, and $`\gamma =0.051`$ (all in MeV<sup>-1</sup>), corresponding to the first set of systematics given in Table 3 of Ref. ILJ-MEB , which includes the shell corrections of Ref. MS . $`B_s`$ is the surface area of the nucleus in units of the surface for a sphere of equal volume. $`B_s1`$ for nearly spherical nuclei with small deformation. Since the surface is systematically larger at the saddle point, $`B_s>1`$ there; in fact $`B_s2^{1/3}1.26`$ for the configuration corresponding to the splitting of the compound nucleus into two equal spherical fragments. Such a case nearly corresponds to the fission of low-fissility nuclei, while for highly fissile nuclei the shape at the saddle point is closer to a sphere and $`B_s1`$.

In Ref. Martins , for example, the level-density parameter $`a_f`$ at the fission saddle point (in the transition state) is calculated using an analogous parameter for the neutron emission channel $`a_n`$. In this way, a constant ratio $`r=a_f/a_n`$ is assumed and used as a fitting parameter of the model. As a consequence of this assumption, the shell-effect influence on the level density for the neutron-emission channel is transferred to the level density at the saddle point. However, contrary to Ref. Martins , we expect that the shell corrections at the saddle point with large deformation have no relation to those at the ground state with relatively small equilibrium deformation Cherepanov ; Ignatyuk75 ; Ignatyuk79 . We conclude that the shell corrections should be much smaller at the saddle point and therefore we can use the asymptotic value $`\stackrel{~}{a}_f(A)`$ instead of an energy-dependent $`a_f(Z,N,E^{})`$. The value of $`\stackrel{~}{a}_f(A)`$ is assumed to be proportional to the asymptotic one for the neutron-emission channel $`\stackrel{~}{a}_n(A)`$.

The ratios $`\stackrel{~}{a}_f/\stackrel{~}{a}_n`$ for some nuclei were calculated in Ref. Reisdorf  based on the liquid-drop model MS74  and using an expression similar to Eq. (11), but with an additional curvature term. As shown in Fig. 5, the ratios obtained from this procedure are very close to unity for the actinides ($`1.021.04`$) and are higher for the preactinides ($`1.071.12`$). Since the value for $`\stackrel{~}{a}_f/\stackrel{~}{a}_n`$ used in our calculations needs to be valid for a much wider range of nuclides, we tried to interpolate between the values tabulated in Ref. Reisdorf  to obtain the values for other nuclei as shown, for example, in Fig. 4. Such a procedure deals with the average values of $`\stackrel{~}{a}_f/\stackrel{~}{a}_n`$ and neglects possible rapid changes of the ratio for individual isotopes. However, this is the only method to estimate $`\stackrel{~}{a}_f/\stackrel{~}{a}_n`$ for the region of nuclei between Po and Th, where experimental information on the nuclear level densities is lacking.

Using this interpolation procedure, we find that the photofission cross sections for lead are underestimated by theory by a large factor. Therefore, to improve the agreement with the experimental data SanabriaPhd ; Cetina2002 , we increased the difference between the values of Ref. Reisdorf  and unity by a factor of 1.7 (variant $`𝒜`$) or 1.5 (variant $``$). The resulting curves are shown in Fig. 5. As one can see, such modification is not too far outside the range of $`\stackrel{~}{a}_f/\stackrel{~}{a}_n`$ values which were obtained in Refs. Reisdorf ; Toke ; Treiner . Moreover, the curve of variant $`𝒜`$ independently obtained from the analysis of the photofission data on $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$ SanabriaPhd ; Cetina2002 , agrees very well indeed with the values of Ref. Treiner , the most recent and comprehensive of these studies of nuclear level densities, denoted by curve “3” in Fig. 5.

Following Refs. Ignatyuk75 ; Ignatyuk79 ; ILJ-MEB , the fission barriers are computed from the macroscopic liquid-drop component $`B_{LD}(Z,N)`$ and the shell correction at the nuclear ground state $`\delta W_{gs}(Z,N)`$ MS :

$$B_f(Z,N,E^{})=B_{LD}(Z,N)\delta W_{gs}(Z,N).$$
(12)
In this expression, the shell correction a the saddle point is neglected.

The validity of the above-mentioned assumptions (except for our interpolation procedure for $`\stackrel{~}{a}_f/\stackrel{~}{a}_n`$) was confirmed in previous studies of nuclear fission induced by various projectiles. For example, the dependence of $`W_f`$ on the target-nucleus mass for reactions with stopped $`\pi ^{}`$ mesons, photons, protons, and $`\alpha `$-particles with kinetic energies below 1 GeV was considered in Ref. Cherepanov  within the framework of the intranuclear cascade, fission, and evaporation models. The calculated values were compared with the experimental data available at that time. The influences on fission probability of shell effects, pre-equilibrium emission from the residual nucleus, and the parameters of the liquid-drop model were studied. Later, the $`W_f`$ values were deduced within this model for heavy nuclei ($`Z^2/A>30`$) in reactions with these projectiles and with pions in flight Iljinov-Mebel .

### II.4 Results for electromagnetically-induced heavy-ion fission

As shown above, when energetic photons are absorbed by heavy nuclei, a wide range of excited residual nuclei is created, having masses and charges far from the stability line. Beams of relativistic radioactive nuclei provide new access to fission studies of such nuclei. For example, in Ref. Heinz , fission of 58 secondary projectiles (<sup>231-234</sup>U, <sup>226-231</sup>Pa, <sup>221-229</sup>Th, <sup>215-226</sup>Ac, <sup>211-223</sup>Ra, <sup>208-212,217,218</sup>Fr, <sup>205-209</sup>Rn, and <sup>205,206</sup>At) produced by fragmentation of 1 GeV/nucleon <sup>238</sup>U nuclei has been studied. The total fission cross section in secondary collisions of these nuclei with a lead target at energy 420 MeV/nucleon was found to consist of two comparable parts, due to hadronic and electromagnetic interactions.

Electromagnetically-induced fission results from absorption of virtual photons. According to the RELDIS model, which is based on the Weizsäcker-Williams method of equivalent quanta, such nuclei are typified by low excitations, $`E^{}1213`$ MeV, due to the photons in the GDR region with energies below 20 MeV. The recent data Heinz  make possible a crucial test of the model, since $`E^{}B_f`$ in such processes. This makes the model results very sensitive to the fission barrier shape and height, as well as to the level-density parameterization $`\rho (E^{})`$ used in the calculations.

The experimental fission probabilities $`w_f^{ED}`$ for each of the ions were derived by dividing the measured fission cross sections of Ref. Heinz  by the calculated total electromagnetic-dissociation cross sections $`\sigma ^{ED}`$. The calculations were performed by accounting for absorption of either one or two photons in each collision event; see Refs. Pshenichnov ; Pshenichnov2 ; Pshenichnov2001  for details. Double-photon absorption processes were taken into account by applying the harmonic-oscillator ansatz in conjunction with the folding model Llope:vp .

Since experimental data on the total photoabsorption cross sections for unstable nuclei are not available, the cross sections for nearby stable nuclei were used in calculations of $`\sigma ^{ED}`$. Approximations of the total photoabsorption cross sections obtained in Ref. Berman-Fultz  were used. Such a substitution generally leads to 2-3% error in $`\sigma ^{ED}`$ according to the estimates based on the GDR sum rule Berman-Fultz ; ADNDT .

Experimental and calculated values of $`w_f^{ED}`$ are shown in Fig. 6. Very good agreement is found for the most fissile nuclei <sup>231-234</sup>U and <sup>226-231</sup>Pa. The description of the data for Th nuclei is poor. The calculated values for Ac, Ra, Fr, Rn, and At are much lower than the experimental data, but good agreement is obtained for the values of $`w_f^{ED}`$ for those isotopes which are closest to the stable isotopes of Ac, Ra, and Fr. This is explained by the fact that the input calculational parameters were adjusted to describe the fission of nuclei close to the stability line. The calculations presented in Ref. Heinz  for Ra nuclei also underestimate the electromagnetic fission cross sections. At the present time, the description of the fission of radioactive nuclei seems to present a common difficulty to all fission models. Further work on our fission model should be aimed at a better description of the fission of unstable nuclei.

Using single-humped fission barriers instead of double-humped barriers and neglecting the collective effects in the nuclear level-density formula does not lead to disagreement with the data for U and Pa nuclei. Below we estimate how the failure to describe the fission of other radioactive nuclei may affect the total calculated fission probability $`W_f`$ in phototoabsorption. The 58 radioactive nuclei listed are only a small subset of all of the residual nuclei created in photoabsorption of GeV photons. As a rule, such residual nuclei are much more highly excited. However, photoabsorption at lower energies, such as at $`E_\gamma =68`$ MeV, creates nuclei with $`E^{}`$ of only about 20 MeV, much closer to nuclei with $`E^{}1213`$ MeV, which is the case for electromagnetically induced heavy-ion fission. This makes useful the comparison presented in Fig. 7.

The charge distributions of residual nuclei created in photoabsorption on <sup>237</sup>Np and <sup>238</sup>U at $`E_\gamma =68`$ MeV are shown in Fig. 7, together with the calculated fission probabilities for residual elements. Excited Np, U, Pa, and Th nuclei are created in photoabsorption at this energy. The calculated and measured values of $`w_f^{ED}`$ for such nuclei in electromagnetically induced fission are shown in the bottom part of the same plot. These values are obtained as average values of the points for individual nuclides, and they are different from the values of $`w_f`$ for photofission, due to the difference in $`E^{}`$. As shown, fission probability in electromagnetically induced fission of U and Pa is described at the 5% level of accuracy. The agreement for Th is poor, but this element is less abundant in the ensembles of residual nuclei; the estimate of the total fission probability $`W_f`$ for the whole ensemble is quite reliable.

The reliability of the fission model can be quantitatively assessed by calculating the total fission probability for the ensembles presented in Fig. 7. In the following two hypothetical examples the experimental and theoretical values for $`w_f^{ED}`$ were used, but in both cases the residual-element abundances were taken for photoabsorption at $`E_\gamma =68`$ MeV. As found for the $`\gamma +`$Np case, $`W_f=0.98`$ for the calculated $`w_f^{ED}`$, compared with $`W_f=0.97`$ for the value extracted from experiment. For the $`\gamma +`$U case, $`W_f=0.93`$ and $`W_f=0.91`$, respectively, for the two sets of input $`w_f^{ED}`$ values. Therefore, the failure to describe the fissility of Th leads to an error in $`W_f`$ of only $`3`$%. In this way, the reliability of the fission model is demonstrated for the most fissile and most probable residual nuclei created in photoabsorption on <sup>237</sup>Np and <sup>238</sup>U at low energies.

## III Results and Discussion

### III.1 Fission Probabilities for $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝟐𝟑𝟕}}\mathrm{𝐍𝐩}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝟐𝟑𝟑},\mathrm{𝟐𝟑𝟓},\mathrm{𝟐𝟑𝟖}}𝐔`$, $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝟐𝟑𝟐}}\mathrm{𝐓𝐡}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝐧𝐚𝐭}}\mathrm{𝐏𝐛}`$

As a rule, the liquid-drop model predicts proton-rich nuclei to have higher probability to undergo fission MS ; MS74 . The probability $`w_f`$ for a residual nucleus with given mass $`A_{RN}`$ and charge $`Z_{RN}`$ to undergo fission during the last stage of the reaction is shown in Fig. 8 for $`E_\gamma =3.77`$ GeV for $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$.

The probability $`w_f`$ is defined for each of the nuclides created after the INC stage of photoabsorption, while the fission probability $`W_f`$ refers to the appropriately weighted average value calculated over the whole ensemble of residual nuclei. For example, $`w_f`$ turns out to be below 0.2 for some regions of $`A_{RN}`$ and $`Z_{RN}`$ far from the $`A`$ and $`Z`$ of the initial target nucleus. However, these regions do not contribute much to the resulting $`W_f`$, since the probability to create a nucleus with such $`A_{RN}`$ and $`Z_{RN}`$ is low, as can be seen in Figs. 4 and 8. As a result, the $`W_f`$ values, shown in Fig. 9 as functions of $`E_\gamma `$ for $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$, are generally above 0.6 despite the fact that some of the residual nuclei have a low probability $`w_f`$ to undergo fission. As is also shown in Fig. 9, this is true for $`{}_{}{}^{233}\mathrm{U}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{235}\mathrm{U}`$ as well, for which $`0.8W_f0.95`$, almost as large as the corresponding values for $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$.

Our calculated values for $`W_f`$ for $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$ are much lower, $`0.100.15`$, as can be seen in Fig. 9. The values for $`W_f`$ are first obtained for each of the most abundant lead isotopes, $`{}_{}{}^{206}\mathrm{Pb}`$ (24.1%), $`{}_{}{}^{207}\mathrm{Pb}`$ (22.1%), and $`{}_{}{}^{208}\mathrm{Pb}`$ (52.4%), and then are averaged with appropriate weights to obtain the fission probability for $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$.

As can be seen in Fig. 9, two extreme cases are represented by photoabsorption on the highly fissile actinides $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{233}\mathrm{U}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{235}\mathrm{U}`$ and on the pre-actinide $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$. At $`E_\gamma =68`$ MeV, fission clearly dominates for the residual nuclei created after photoabsorption on $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{233}\mathrm{U}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{235}\mathrm{U}`$. However, the fission contribution gradually decreases with increasing $`E_\gamma `$, since, on average, a wider distribution of residual nuclei created at higher $`E_\gamma `$ has lower fission probability and nucleon evaporation becomes more important. A completely different tendency is found for the photofission of lead, which has a clear threshold behavior. Due to high fission barriers for the residual nuclei created after photoabsorption on $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$, the fission process is suppressed below $`E_\gamma 100`$ MeV and only evaporation from excited nuclei can take place there. Above $`E_\gamma 100`$ MeV, the fission probability $`W_f`$ gradually increases to $`W_f0.1`$, but this still represents only a small part of the deexcitation process. An intermediate tendency is found in photoabsorption on $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$. For these cases, $`W_f`$ has a very broad maximum at $`E_\gamma 0.51`$ GeV and decreases gradually with $`E_\gamma `$ above $`1`$ GeV.

Different mechanisms of photoabsorption play a role at different photon energies. As a result, a variation in the trend of the average excitation energy versus $`E_\gamma `$ is found for 180–250 MeV, as seen in Fig. 1. The variations of $`W_f(E_\gamma )`$ which are seen in Fig. 9 have the same origin. The probability for a pion produced in the $`\gamma N\pi N`$ process to be absorbed in the nuclear medium increases rapidly with $`E_\gamma `$ as one approaches the region of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}(1232)`$ resonance, $`E_\gamma 200500`$ MeV. If this pion is re-absorbed in the nucleus, the excitation energy increases and, therefore, so does the fission probability.

If the pre-equilibrium emission process after the cascade stage of photonuclear reaction is neglected in the calculations, the decay of the excited compound nucleus takes place with higher excitation energy $`E^{}`$ and fissility parameter $`Z^2/A`$. This generally leads to higher values of $`W_f`$, as shown in Fig. 9 by dotted lines for $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$.

The changes in $`W_f`$ due to the variation of $`\stackrel{~}{a}_f/\stackrel{~}{a}_n`$ ($`𝒜`$ and $``$) are of the order of 5% for $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{233}\mathrm{U}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{235}\mathrm{U}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$ and 10% for $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$, as also can be seen in Fig. 9. This important observation of the relative stability of the calculated $`W_f`$ is true for actinide nuclei only. This makes it possible to infer the total photoabsorption cross section from the photofission data Sanabria ; Cetina ; Cetina2002  and the calculated values for $`W_f`$.

Fission probabilities estimated in Refs. Martins ; Lep-fiss  from previous experimental data on absolute photofission cross sections are given in Fig. 9 for comparison, although they are in poor agreement with each other. The calculated $`W_f`$ value from Ref. Lucherini  is in good agreement with our results for $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$.

Compared with the approach of Refs. ILJ-MEB ; Iljinov-Nedorezov , several simplifications were adopted in our fission calculations. For example, we do not use double-humped fission barriers for actinides, nor do we take into account any collective effects in the nuclear level-density formula because (i) information (either experimental or theoretical) on such effects is not available for the whole range of residual nuclei, and (ii) at high excitation energies ($`E^{}30`$ MeV), which are our interest here, the fission probability $`W_f`$ is sensitive mainly to the ratio $`\stackrel{~}{a}_f/\stackrel{~}{a}_n`$. The uncertainty in the choice of $`\stackrel{~}{a}_f/\stackrel{~}{a}_n`$ exceeds the uncertainties resulting from the selection of other calculational parameters describing the decay of the excited residual nucleus.

As shown in Fig. 9, the difference between our approach and that of Refs. ILJ-MEB ; Iljinov-Nedorezov  does not lead to a dramatic difference in $`W_f`$ for $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$. In the limited energy region $`60E_\gamma 240`$ MeV, $`W_f8595`$% and $`7085`$%, respectively, for both approaches. However, for $`250E_\gamma 1200`$ MeV, our fission probabilities for $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$ (variants $`𝒜`$ and $``$) are noticeably lower than those of Ref. Bianchi93 , where the effect of pre-equilibrium emission, the trawling effect, and some multiple-pion photoproduction channels were neglected.

Our calculated fission probabilities relative to $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$ are shown in Fig. 10 for the uranium isotopes, thorium, and lead as a function of $`E_\gamma `$, compared with the experimental data from SAL Sanabria ; SanabriaPhd  and JLab Cetina ; Cetina2002 . Again, only minor changes are found due to the choice of $`\stackrel{~}{a}_f/\stackrel{~}{a}_n`$ in variants $`𝒜`$ and $``$ for actinides, whose energy dependence of relative fission probabilities is flat.

A better description of the experimental fission probabilities relative to $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$ is found for $`{}_{}{}^{233}\mathrm{U}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{235}\mathrm{U}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$. Larger uncertainties in the calculations exist for $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$, and especially for $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$, where the $`W_f`$ values are farther from unity.

As shown in Figs. 9 and 10, our calculated fission probabilities for $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$ are in agreement within $`10`$–20% with the theoretical results of other authors and the estimates based on earlier experimental data from the literature, which are available mainly at low energies, $`E_\gamma <300`$ MeV. The fission probabilities for $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{233,235,238}\mathrm{U}`$ are stable within $`7`$% with respect to the choice of calculational parameters. At $`E_\gamma 100`$ MeV, the main uncertainty in our results for these nuclei is due to the choice of $`\stackrel{~}{a}_f/\stackrel{~}{a}_n`$.

For the case of $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$, we see a larger discrepancy with the data than for the other actinides, while the energy dependence is still reproduced reasonably well. The $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$ nucleus deviates from the pattern common to the heavier actinides at lower energies with regard to fission probability Caldwell  and the number of prompt neutrons emitted per fission Caldwell1  because it has a more spherical shape Caldwell . It may be that this deviation persists to GeV energies as well.

### III.2 The Total Photoabsorption Cross Section as a Calculational Input

In order to obtain the absolute photofission cross section, the calculated fission probability must be multiplied by the total photoabsorption cross section. In the RELDIS code, the values of the total photoabsorption cross section are taken from approximations to the existing experimental data. In the GDR region, the Lorentz-curve fits with parameters from Refs. Berman-Fultz ; ADNDT , corrected according to the prescription of Ref. Berman , were used for this purpose. Above the GDR region, where quasideuteron absorption becomes dominant, the total cross section is taken from the estimate of Ref. Lepretre  (based on the quasideuteron model Levinger .)

Above the pion-production thresholds, a “universal” behavior, $`\sigma _{\gamma A}(E_\gamma )A`$, is observed (see Ref. Bianchi ; Valeria  for the latest experimental data). This means that the total photoabsorption cross section per bound nucleon $`\sigma _{\gamma A}(E_\gamma )/A`$ has the same magnitude and the same energy dependence for light, medium, and heavy nuclei (C, Al, Cu, Sn, and Pb) at least up to $`E_\gamma 3`$ GeV. Therefore, having the data for one nucleus, one can calculate the cross section for other nuclei. However, in this energy region the universal curve $`\sigma _{\gamma A}(E_\gamma )/A`$ is very different from the values extrapolated from the cross sections on free nucleons, $`(Z\sigma _{\gamma p}+N\sigma _{\gamma n})/A`$, which are deduced from proton Daresbury ; DAPHNE  and deuteron data Daresbury:gn . For $`E_\gamma >3`$ GeV, the universal behavior breaks down, and, for example, the ratio $`\sigma _{\gamma A}(E_\gamma )/A`$ for lead is 20-25% lower than for carbon Engel-Roesler  due to the nuclear shadowing effect Weise ; Brooks . In order to approximate the total photonuclear cross sections at $`E_\gamma >3`$ GeV, we use recent results for $`\sigma _{\gamma A}(E_\gamma )/A`$ obtained with the Glauber-Gribov approximation within the Generalized Vector Dominance Model (see Ref. Engel-Roesler  and references therein).

### III.3 Absolute Photofission Cross Sections for $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝟐𝟑𝟕}}\mathrm{𝐍𝐩}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝟐𝟑𝟑},\mathrm{𝟐𝟑𝟓},\mathrm{𝟐𝟑𝟖}}𝐔`$, $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝟐𝟑𝟐}}\mathrm{𝐓𝐡}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝐧𝐚𝐭}}\mathrm{𝐏𝐛}`$

Our calculated absolute photofission cross sections for $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{233,235,238}\mathrm{U}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$ are shown in Fig. 11 and compared with the experimental data of Refs. Sanabria ; SanabriaPhd ; Cetina ; Cetina2002 . For $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{233,235,238}\mathrm{U}`$, variants $`𝒜`$ and $``$ give consistent results. Except for $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$, neglecting pre-equilibrium emission after the INC stage does not lead to a large change in the calculated photofission cross section; a small increase in the calculated cross section is obtained only for $`E_\gamma 1`$ GeV. When normalized to the “Universal Curve” in this way, our calculated absolute cross sections agree within $`7`$% with the data for $`{}_{}{}^{233}\mathrm{U}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{235}\mathrm{U}`$, but are underestimated for $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$ and overestimated for $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$, especially in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}(1232)`$-resonance region, although qualitative agreement for the shape of the cross sections is found. It should be stressed, however, that these cross sections were calculated using “the universal” $`\sigma _{\gamma A}(E_\gamma )/A`$ dependence, which was obtained for nuclei with $`A208`$.

Using the same procedure, we obtain the absolute photofission cross section for $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$ shown in Fig. 11 on a separate scale, since this cross section was found to be much smaller than those for the actinides. Although the results of the calculation based on set $`𝒜`$ for the $`\stackrel{~}{a}_f/\stackrel{~}{a}_n`$ ratios are adjusted to match the data near the peak of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}(1232)`$, at higher energies they grossly overestimate the photofission cross section. Moreover, neglecting pre-equilibrium emission leads to a large increase of the fission probability due to the increase of the excitation energy of the compound nucleus. This leads to an unreasonably large enhancement of the fission channel.

Contrary to the case for the actinides, large uncertainties in the calculated photofission cross section for $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$ make unreliable any estimate of its total photoabsorption cross section from the photofission data SanabriaPhd ; Cetina2002 . But since our study is aimed mainly at photofission reactions in the actinide region, we did not attempt to obtain better agreement with the photofission cross section for $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$ via further adjustment of the calculational parameters for each stable isotope of lead or by introducing an empirical dependence of fission barriers on $`E^{}`$, as was done in Refs. BAR ; Sauer ; Sierk .

### III.4 Evaluation of the “Universal Curve” from the Actinide Photofission Data

It has been suggested Frommhold1992 ; Frommhold1994 ; CLAS  that one might be able to infer the photoabsorption cross section from the measured photofission cross section for very heavy nuclei. In this manner, the behavior of the “Universal Curve” for such nuclei could be investigated.

We can calculate the total photoabsorption cross section per bound nucleon $`\sigma _{\gamma A}(E_\gamma )/A`$ by means of our calculated values for $`W_f(E_\gamma )`$ and the actinide photofission cross-section data of Refs. Sanabria ; Cetina2002 , using

$$\frac{\sigma _{\gamma A}(E_\gamma )}{A}=\frac{\sigma _{\gamma f}(E_\gamma )}{A}\frac{1}{W_f(E_\gamma )}.$$
(13)
The data for each of the target nuclei used in Refs. Sanabria ; Cetina2002 , except for $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$, were interpolated by smooth curves and then divided by the calculated $`W_f`$. The results of this procedure, shown in Fig. 12, are in agreement within $`10`$% of each other, except for $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$. Those for $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$ are obtained with $`W_f(E_\gamma )`$ values that we found to be more sensitive to the choice of calculational parameters and hence less accurately defined. Reasonable agreement is found with the $`\sigma _{\gamma A}(E_\gamma )/A`$ data of Refs. Bianchi ; Valeria ; Michalowski  at $`E_\gamma 0.7`$ GeV, but marked disagreement in strength ($`20`$%) exists in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}`$ region.

In order to understand how the mass and width of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}(1232)`$ resonance are changed in very heavy nuclei compared with other nuclei and the nucleon, we plot $`\sigma _{\gamma A}(E_\gamma )/A`$ for the average of four nuclei, $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{235}\mathrm{U}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{233}\mathrm{U}`$, as the solid curve in Fig. 13 together with the data points for nuclei with $`A208`$ of Refs. Bianchi ; Valeria . The weighted average total photoabsorption cross section for the free nucleon is shown as the dotted curve:

$$\sigma _{\gamma N}=\frac{Z\sigma _{\gamma p}+N\sigma _{\gamma n}}{A},$$
(14)
where $`Z=92`$, $`N=144`$, and $`A=236`$ were taken as average values for these four nuclei. The total photoabsorption cross sections on the proton $`\sigma _{\gamma p}`$ and on the neutron $`\sigma _{\gamma n}`$ were taken as polynomial fits of experimental data Daresbury ; DAPHNE ; Daresbury:gn . Comparison of the nuclear data in Fig. 13 with the nucleon curve demonstrates that the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}`$ is shifted upward in mass slightly and broadened considerably.

It is stated in Ref. Bianchi  that the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}(1232)`$-resonance excitation parameters increase with nuclear density due to hadronic resonance propagation and interactions; for Pb, compared with Li, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}`$ mass $`M_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ increases linearly up to a few tens of MeV, and its width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ up to several tens of MeV. Following this trend, only small modifications for $`M_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ are expected if the mass of the target nucleus increases by 30 units, from $`A=208`$ to 238. When the solid curve is re-scaled to fit the experimental points close to the maximum, as shown in Fig. 13 by the dashed curve, essentially no further modification of the mass or the width of the resonance is required. Our study shows a far more dramatic effect: the strength of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}(1232)`$ resonance increases by $`20`$%, without any noticeable change in its mass or width.

Finally, one can also see from Figs. 11, 12, and 13 that a shoulder appears for $`E_\gamma `$ 0.8–1.0 GeV. This shoulder might well reflect the excitation of the $`N^{}(1520)`$ resonance. Evidence for this $`N^{}(1520)`$ excitation is seen most prominently in the structure of the JLab photofission cross sections for $`{}_{}{}^{233,235}\mathrm{U}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$ shown in Fig. 11.

## IV Conclusions

We have calculated, using the RELDIS model, the fission probabilities of $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{233,235,238}\mathrm{U}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{232}\mathrm{Th}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{nat}}\mathrm{Pb}`$ as a function of incident photon energy. We have used these values, together with the measured photofission cross sections from SAL and JLab, to infer the total photoabsorption cross sections for these nuclei. We now answer the questions raised in Sec. I.3.

* We have been able to describe the photofission of the actinide nuclei over a broad energy range. The calculated fission probabilities for $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{238}\mathrm{U}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{235}\mathrm{U}`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{233}\mathrm{U}`$ were found to be stable within 10% with respect to reasonable changes of the input calculational parameters.
* Our model calculations show that photonuclear reactions become more complex in the GeV energy region, when many reaction channels are open. Contrary to the naive expectation that for the actinides, the higher the photon energy, the closer the fission probability $`W_f`$ should be to unity, our calculated fission probabilities for $`E_\gamma >1`$ GeV are found not to exceed those values for $`E_\gamma 50100`$ MeV; they are, in fact, predicted to decrease somewhat. At higher photon energies, only a small part of the energy is converted into the internal excitation of the absorbing nuclear system. The resulting behavior of $`W_f`$ is due to the creation of compound nuclei with fissility parameter $`Z^2/A`$ much lower than that for the target nucleus.
* We show that the residual nuclei after direct and pre-equilibrium emission of hadrons resemble the target nucleus, in the sense that the fissility parameter $`Z^2/A`$ is similar, only for relatively low incident photon energies ($`E_\gamma 100`$ MeV). They differ markedly for GeV energies. The products of photospallation reactions have relatively low probabilities to undergo fission, but high rates to decay via the less collective channels leading to the evaporation of nucleons.
* Our calculations show that for the actinides, fission is not the only significant outcome following photoabsorption at GeV energies. Even at the highest tagged-photon energies ($`E_\gamma `$ 4 GeV) used in the measurements at JLab, the competition with the evaporation process is still important. Therefore, we conclude that the photofission cross section cannot be substituted for the total photoabsorption cross section in the GeV energy region, even for those nuclei with the largest fissility parameters. The photoabsorption cross section must be obtained from a calculation of $`W_f`$ applied to the photofission cross section.
* The total photoabsorption cross sections per bound nucleon for $`{}_{}{}^{237}\mathrm{Np}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{233,235,238}\mathrm{U}`$ were inferred using the recent photofission data Sanabria ; Cetina2002  and our calculated fission probabilities. The resulting “universal” curves for $`\sigma _{\gamma A}(E_\gamma )/A`$ were found to be in agreement within $`10`$% of each other. However, reasonable agreement with $`\sigma _{\gamma A}(E_\gamma )/A`$ obtained for nuclei with $`A208`$ was found only for $`E_\gamma 0.8`$ GeV, while our values for the heavy actinides are $`20`$% higher in the region of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}(1232)`$ resonance.
* The calculational uncertainties for fission probabilities for Np and U are estimated to be at the level of 10%, which should be combined with the $`5`$% accuracy of the measured photofission cross sections. Although the disagreement found with $`\sigma _{\gamma A}(E_\gamma )/A`$ for $`A208`$ nuclei cannot readily be explained by the presence of these uncertainties, one also should take into account the accuracy of previous measurements of the “Universal Curve,” which can be estimated as no better than 5% as well. These uncertainties taken together prevent us from drawing a definitive conclusion that the “Universal Curve,” obtained for nuclei with $`A208`$, breaks down for heavy nuclei with $`A233`$ and for $`E_\gamma `$ in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}(1232)`$-resonance region. However, our findings clearly call into question this concept and demonstrate the need for direct measurement of the total photoabsorption cross sections for the heavy actinides. Such measurements would serve to confirm or refute the predictions of this paper.

###### Acknowledgements.

I.A.P. thanks the Center for Nuclear Studies of The George Washington University for warm hospitality and financial support and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research for support in part under Grant RFFI-02-02-16013. This work is supported by the US Department of Energy under Grant DE-FG02-95ER40901.


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# Is the temperature as a Lorentz scalar?

## Acknowledgement

The author thanks Dr. X.B.Ai and Dr. F.Kleefeld for useful communications. This work is partially supported by CAS knowledge Innovation Project No.KJCX2-N11 and the Major State Basic Research Development Program Under Contract No. G200077400.


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# The confluent algorithm in second order supersymmetric quantum mechanics

## 1 Introduction

The second order supersymmetric quantum mechanics (2-SUSY QM), which involves second order differential intertwining operators , has proved useful to surpass the difficulty of ‘modifying’ the excited state levels inherent to the standard first order 1-SUSY QM. In fact, in the 2-SUSY treatment we do not respect the restrictions imposed by 1-SUSY on the transformation functions $`u_1(x),u_2(x)`$, i.e., they can have nodes but induce a non-singular 2-SUSY transformation . In this way, potentials with two extra bound states above the ground state energy of the initial Hamiltonian $`H`$ (or above the lowest band edge if $`V(x)`$ is periodic) have been recently generated . A different atypical method employing two complex conjugate factorization energies has been as well implemented, generating in this case families of real isospectral 2-SUSY partner potentials of $`V(x)`$ .

There is yet another situation worth studying in detail, namely, when the two factorization energies tend to a common real value $`ϵ`$. This so-called confluent algorithm was used to generate a particular family of isospectral oscillator potentials . However, we have not detected a generic analysis (for arbitrary factorization energies $`ϵ`$) of the properties of the transformation function $`u(x)`$ ensuring that the final potential will be non-singular. This is the subject of the present paper, which has been organized as follows. In section 2 an alternative view of the confluent 2-SUSY algorithm will be elaborated. The restrictions imposed onto $`u(x)`$ in order to obtain non-singular final potentials will be analysed in section 3. In section 4 we will apply the technique to the free particle, one-soliton well and standard harmonic oscillator.

## 2 Second order supersymmetric quantum mechanics

The second order supersymmetric quantum mechanics (2-SUSY QM) is a particular realization of the standard supersymmetry algebra with two generators :

$$\{Q_j,Q_k\}=\delta _{jk}H_{\mathrm{ss}},[H_{\mathrm{ss}},Q_j]=0,j,k=1,2,$$
(1)
where $`Q_1=(Q^{}+Q)/\sqrt{2},Q_2=(Q^{}Q)/(i\sqrt{2})`$,

$`Q=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& A\\ 0& 0\end{array}\right),Q^{}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 0\\ A^{}& 0\end{array}\right),`$ (2)
$`H_{\mathrm{ss}}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}AA^{}& 0\\ 0& A^{}A\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}(\stackrel{~}{H}ϵ_1)(\stackrel{~}{H}ϵ_2)& 0\\ 0& (Hϵ_1)(Hϵ_2)\end{array}\right),`$ (3)
and $`H,\stackrel{~}{H}`$ are two intertwined Schrödinger Hamiltonians:

$`\stackrel{~}{H}A=AH,`$ (4)
$`\stackrel{~}{H}={\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{dx^2}}+\stackrel{~}{V}(x),H={\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{dx^2}}+V(x),`$ (5)
$`A={\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{dx^2}}+\eta (x){\displaystyle \frac{d}{dx}}+\gamma (x).`$ (6)
The relations between $`\eta (x),\gamma (x),V(x)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{V}(x)`$, are:

$`\stackrel{~}{V}=V+2\eta ^{},`$ (7)
$`\gamma =dV+\eta ^2/2\eta ^{}/2,`$ (8)
$`\eta \eta ^{\prime \prime }(\eta ^{})^2/2+\eta ^2(\eta ^2/22\eta ^{}2V+2d)+2c=0,`$ (9)
where, in terms of $`c,d`$, the factorization energies read $`ϵ_1=d+\sqrt{c}`$, $`ϵ_2=d\sqrt{c}`$. Suppose that $`V(x)`$ is a given exactly solvable potential; then $`\stackrel{~}{V}(x)`$ will be effectively determined if we find explicit solutions $`\eta (x)`$ to the non-linear second order differential equation (9). Depending on the sign of $`c`$, two essentially different cases arise.

If $`c0`$ then $`ϵ_1ϵ_2`$, and we must look for solutions of the two Riccati equations:

$`\beta _i^{}+\beta _i^2=Vϵ_i,i=1,2.`$ (10)
Having $`\beta _1(x)`$, $`\beta _2(x)`$, we get two different equations for $`\eta (x)`$ (see, e.g., )

$`\eta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\eta ^2+2\beta _1\eta +ϵ_2ϵ_1,`$ (11)
$`\eta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\eta ^2+2\beta _2\eta +ϵ_1ϵ_2.`$ (12)
By subtracting them, we arrive to a finite difference algorithm for $`\eta (x)`$:

$$\eta (x)=(ϵ_1ϵ_2)/(\beta _1\beta _2).$$
(13)
On the other hand, the confluent case arises for $`c=0`$ implying that $`ϵ_1=ϵ_2ϵ=d`$. In this situation, we look for solutions to just one Riccati equation

$$\beta ^{}+\beta ^2=Vϵ,$$
(14)
and $`\eta (x)`$ satisfies an equation arising when $`ϵ_1=ϵ_2`$ in (11,12):

$$\eta ^{}=\eta ^2+2\beta \eta .$$
(15)
This is the Bernoulli equation, whose general solution is given by:

$$\eta (x)=w^{}(x)/w(x),$$
(16)
where

$$w(x)=w_0e^{2{\scriptscriptstyle \beta (x)𝑑x}}𝑑x.$$
(17)
In the next section we will analyse the conditions which grant that the confluent 2-SUSY transformations are non-singular. This provides the simplest way of ensuring that, departing from an exactly solvable initial potentials $`V(x)`$, we arrive as well at an exactly solvable regular $`\stackrel{~}{V}(x)`$ (see e.g. the discussion in ).

## 3 Confluent non-singular transformations

Let us express first the confluent formulae of section 2 in terms of solutions of the initial Schrödinger equation obtained from (14) by the change $`\beta (x)=u^{}(x)/u(x)`$:

$$u^{\prime \prime }(x)+V(x)u(x)=ϵu(x).$$
(18)
Thus, up to an unimportant constant factor (see (16)), the key function $`w(x)`$ becomes

$$w(x)=w_0_{x_0}^xu^2(y)𝑑y,$$
(19)
and the confluent 2-SUSY potential $`\stackrel{~}{V}(x)`$ is given by:

$$\stackrel{~}{V}(x)=V(x)2[w^{}(x)/w(x)]^{}.$$
(20)
It is clear now that in order to arrive at real non-singular potentials $`\stackrel{~}{V}(x)`$ we have to use real solutions $`u(x)`$ of (18) inducing a nodeless $`w(x)`$. Let us notice that

$$w^{}(x)=u^2(x),$$
(21)
meaning that $`w(x)`$ is decreasing monotonic, so the simplest way of avoiding its zeros is to look for the appropriate asymptotic behaviour for $`u(x)`$. Two different situations are worth considering.

(i) Suppose first that $`ϵ=E_m`$ is one of the discrete eigenvalues of $`H`$ and the transformation function is the corresponding normalized physical eigenfunction, $`u(x)=\psi _m(x)`$. Denote by $`\nu _+`$ the following finite integral:

$$\nu _+_{x_0}^{\mathrm{}}u^2(y)𝑑y.$$
(22)
It is straightforward to show that:

$$\underset{x\mathrm{}}{lim}w(x)=w_0\nu _++1\nu +1$$
(23)
and

$$\underset{x+\mathrm{}}{lim}w(x)=\nu .$$
(24)
It turns out that $`w(x)`$ is nodeless if either both limits are positive or both negative, leading to the $`\nu `$-domain where the confluent 2-SUSY transformation is non-singular:

$$\nu (1,0)=(\mathrm{},1][0,\mathrm{}).$$
(25)
(ii) Suppose now that the transformation function $`u(x)`$ is a non-normalizable solution of (18) associated to a real factorization energy $`ϵ\mathrm{Sp}(H)`$ such that

$$\underset{x\mathrm{}}{lim}u(x)=0\mathrm{and}\nu _+_{x_0}^{\mathrm{}}u^2(y)𝑑y<\mathrm{}.$$
(26)
If this is the case we can show that:

$$\underset{x\mathrm{}}{lim}w(x)=w_0+_{\mathrm{}}^{x_0}u^2(y)𝑑y=\mathrm{}$$
(27)
and

$$\underset{x+\mathrm{}}{lim}w(x)=w_0\nu _+\nu .$$
(28)
By comparing both limits and taking into account that $`w(x)`$ is decreasing monotonic, it turns out that $`w(x)`$ is nodeless if

$$\nu 0.$$
(29)
Let us notice that the same $`\nu `$-restriction holds in the case when

$$\underset{x\mathrm{}}{lim}u(x)=0\mathrm{and}\nu _{}_{\mathrm{}}^{x_0}u^2(y)𝑑y<\mathrm{},$$
(30)
though now $`\nu (w_0+\nu _{})`$.

Once the regularity of the confluent 2-SUSY algorithm is assured, we analyse the spectrum of $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$. From the intertwining relationship (4) and the factorizations in (3) we immediately obtain normalized eigenstates $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n`$ of $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ provided that $`\nu `$ satisfies either (25) in case (i) or (29) in case (ii) and $`A|\psi _n0`$:

$$|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n=(E_nϵ)^1A|\psi _n,$$
(31)
(so in the case (i) we cannot obtain $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_m`$ of (31) because $`A|\psi _m=0`$). The orthonormal set $`\{|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n,n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}\}`$ so constructed is not automatically complete (we have to analyse yet the existence or not of an extra normalizable function $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ belonging to the Kernel of $`A^{}`$ which is orthogonal to all the $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n,n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$). To find $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ explicitly, let us factorize $`A^{}`$ as follows:

$`A^{}=\left[{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dx}}+\beta (x)\right]\left[{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dx}}\beta (x)\eta (x)\right].`$ (32)
It turns out that the $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }\mathrm{Ker}(A^{})`$ we are looking for is annihilated by the second factor operator of (32):

$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }(x)=n_0e^{{\scriptscriptstyle [\beta (x)+\eta (x)]𝑑x}}=n_0u(x)/w(x),$$
(33)
$`n_0`$ is a constant. It is straightforward to check that $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }(x)`$ is a normalized eigenfunction of $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ with eigenvalue $`ϵ`$ for $`\nu [1,0]`$ in the case (i) with $`n_0=\sqrt{\nu (\nu +1)}`$ and for $`\nu >0`$ in the case (ii) with $`n_0=\sqrt{\nu }`$. On the other hand, $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }(x)`$ becomes non-normalizable for $`\nu =1,0`$ in the case (i) or for $`\nu =0`$ in the case (ii). Thus, when $`ϵ=E_m`$ and $`u(x)=\psi _m(x)`$ it turns out that $`\mathrm{Sp}(\stackrel{~}{H})=\mathrm{Sp}(H)`$ if $`\nu [1,0]`$ while the level $`E_m`$ is not present in $`\mathrm{Sp}(\stackrel{~}{H})`$ for $`\nu =1,0`$ (in this case $`E_m`$ has been ‘deleted’ in order to generate $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$). On the other hand, when $`ϵ\mathrm{Sp}(H)`$ and $`u(x)`$ obeys either (26) or (30) it turns out that $`\mathrm{Sp}(\stackrel{~}{H})=\{ϵ\}\mathrm{Sp}(H)`$ for $`\nu >0`$ but $`\mathrm{Sp}(\stackrel{~}{H})=\mathrm{Sp}(H)`$ for $`\nu =0`$. For all the other $`\nu `$-values ($`\nu (1,0)`$ in case (i) and $`\nu <0`$ in case (ii)) it arises a singularity in $`\stackrel{~}{V}(x)`$ due to the existence of a zero in $`w(x)`$. We notice, in particular, that the case (ii) allows to generate a single level above the ground state energy of $`H`$, a mechanism which cannot be directly implemented in the 1-SUSY treatment.

Let us remark that our confluent 2-SUSY procedure coincides with the Abraham-Moses generation technique of creating, deleting or changing the normalization of a single energy level  (see also ). The same procedure, known as binary Darboux transformations , has been employed to generate bound states embedded in the continuum .

## 4 The simplest applications

Let us analyse now the simplest applications of the confluent 2-SUSY algorithm.

(a) Consider first the free particle for which $`V(x)=0`$. For a fixed arbitrary $`ϵ<0`$ which does not belong to $`\mathrm{Sp}(H)`$ there are two asymptotically vanishing transformation functions:

$$u(x)=\sqrt{2k}e^{\pm kx},ϵ=k^2.$$
(34)
A direct calculation leads to:

$$w(x)=2e^{\pm k(x+x_1)}\mathrm{cosh}[k(xx_1)],$$
(35)
where $`\nu =e^{\pm 2kx_1}>0`$. By substituting those expressions into (20) we obtain the Pöschl-Teller potential in both cases:

$$\stackrel{~}{V}(x)=2k^2\mathrm{sech}^2[k(xx_1)],$$
(36)
which has a bound state at $`ϵ=k^2`$.

(b) Take now the previous Pöschl-Teller as the initial potential:

$$V(x)=2k_0^2\mathrm{sech}^2(k_0x),$$
(37)
and denote the ground state energy as usual, $`E_0=k_0^2`$.

Let us consider first the case when $`ϵ=E_0`$ and $`u(x)`$ is the normalized ground state:

$`u(x)=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{k_0}{2}}}\mathrm{sech}(k_0x).`$ (38)
A straightforward calculation leads to:

$`w(x)=\nu +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{tanh}(k_0x),`$ (39)
which produces once again the Pöschl-Teller potential:

$$\stackrel{~}{V}(x)=2k_0^2\mathrm{sech}^2k_0(xx_1),$$
(40)
where $`\mathrm{tanh}(k_0x_1)=1/(1+2\nu )`$.

Suppose now that $`ϵ=k^2E_0,k`$. The solutions with the right asymptotic behaviour are here:

$$u(x)=\sqrt{2k}e^{\pm kx}[k_0\mathrm{tanh}(k_0x)k],$$
(41)
leading to:

$$w(x)=\{\nu +e^{\pm 2kx}[k^2+k_0^22kk_0\mathrm{tanh}(k_0x)]\}.$$
(42)
It turns out that the confluent 2-SUSY potential $`\stackrel{~}{V}(x)`$ acquires the Bargmann form:

$$\stackrel{~}{V}(x)=\frac{2(k_2^2k_1^2)[k_1^2\mathrm{sech}^2k_1(xx_1)+k_2^2\mathrm{csch}^2k_2(xx_2)]}{[k_1\mathrm{tanh}k_1(xx_1)k_2\mathrm{coth}k_2(xx_2)]^2},$$
(43)
where for $`k>k_0`$ we need to take $`k_1=k_0,k_2=k,\nu =(k^2k_0^2)e^{\pm 2kx_2},`$ $`e^{\pm 2k_0x_1}=(k+k_0)/(kk_0)`$ while for $`k<k_0`$ we require $`k_1=k,k_2=k_0,\nu =(k_0^2k^2)e^{\pm 2kx_1},`$ $`e^{\pm 2k_0x_2}=(k+k_0)/(k_0k)`$.

(c) Finally, let us analyse the harmonic oscillator potential:

$$V(x)=x^2,$$
(44)
which has a purely discrete spectrum composed of $`E_n=2n+1,n=0,1,\mathrm{}`$ and eigenfunctions given by:

$$\psi _n(x)=(\sqrt{\pi }2^nn!)^{1/2}e^{x^2/2}H_n(x),n=0,1,\mathrm{}$$
(45)
where $`H_n(x)`$ are the Hermite polynomials.

Let us suppose first that $`ϵ=E_m`$ with $`m`$ fixed, $`u(x)`$ being the corresponding normalized eigenfunction $`\psi _m(x)`$ of (45). The calculation of (19) with $`x_0=0`$ leads to:

$`w(x)=\nu +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}x\begin{array}{c}_{m_0}\\ \\ ^{s=0}\end{array}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^{m_0+s}\mathrm{\Gamma }(m_1)(2x)^{2m_12s1}}{2^{\delta +1}\sqrt{\pi }(m_1s)\mathrm{\Gamma }(\delta +\frac{1}{2})(m2s)!s!}}{}_{2}{}^{}F_{2}^{}(m_1,m_1s;\delta +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}},m_1+1s;x^2)`$ (46)
where $`{}_{2}{}^{}F_{2}^{}(a_1,a_2;b_1,b_2;z)`$ is a generalized Hypergeometric function , $`m_0=(m\delta )/2,m_1=(m+\delta +1)/2`$, $`\delta =0`$ if $`m`$ is even but $`\delta =1`$ if $`m`$ is odd. It turns out that $`\stackrel{~}{V}(x)`$ is isospectral to the oscillator potential, a case illustrated in figure 1 for $`ϵ=7`$ ($`m=3`$) and $`\nu =5/4`$. Let us notice the already involved explicit expression of $`w(x)`$ in (46).

In turn, for $`ϵ\mathrm{Sp}(H)`$ the asymptotically vanishing Schrödinger solutions become:

$`u(x)=e^{\frac{x^2}{2}}\left[{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}({\displaystyle \frac{1ϵ}{4}},{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}};x^2)\pm 2x{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\frac{3ϵ}{4})}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\frac{1ϵ}{4})}}{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}({\displaystyle \frac{3ϵ}{4}},{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}};x^2)\right],`$ (47)
where $`{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(a,c;z)`$ is the Kummer hypergeometric series. The explicit expression for $`w(x)`$ is too involved to be shown here (three infinite sums of kind (46) arise in this case). Alternatively, we performed a numeric calculation of $`\stackrel{~}{V}(x)`$ for $`ϵ=8`$ taking the solution $`u(x)`$ of (47) with the upper plus sign and $`w_0=5`$, $`x_0=0`$ in (19) (see figure 2). The spectrum of $`\stackrel{~}{V}(x)`$ is composed of the oscillator eigenenergies $`E_n=2n+1,n=0,1,\mathrm{}`$ plus a new level at $`ϵ=8`$. This illustrates clearly the possibility offered by the confluent 2-SUSY algorithm of creating one single level above the ground state energy of $`H`$.

We conclude that the second order supersymmetric quantum mechanics is a powerful tool for designing in a simple way potentials with given spectra, a subject supplying us of solvable models with possible applications in the physical sciences (see e.g. ).

Acknowledgements. The support of CONACYT (México) is acknowledged. One of the authors (ESH) also acknowledges the financial support of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional.