New features in the stability and fission decay of superheavy Thorium isotopes

Superheavy isotopes are highly neutron rich nuclei in the vicinity of neutron drip-line, stabilized by shell effect against the instability due to repulsive component of nuclear force, analogous to superheavy elements similarly stabilized against Coulomb instability. Here we discuss the stability and fission decay properties of such nuclei in the $^{254}$Th region and show that they are stable against $\alpha$ and fission decay and have $\beta$-decay life time of several tens of seconds. In particular, the $^{254}$Th nucleus has a low fission barrier and unusally large barrier width. This makes it an ideal thermally fissile nucleus, if formed by means of a thermal neutron, like other known nuclei such as $^{233}$U, $^{235}$U, $^{239}$Pu in this actinide region. It shows a new mode of fast fission decay, which may be termed as multifragmentation fission, in which in addition to two heavy fragments large number of scission neutrons are simultaneously produced. Its likely synthesis during the r-process nucleosynthesis will have important bearing on steller evolution, and here in the laboratory, it has great potential in energy production.