Semi-Microscopical Description of the Scission Configuration in the Cold Fission of $^{252}$Cf

The cold(neutronless) fission of $^{252}$Cf is studied in the frame of a molecular model in which the scission configuration is described by two aligned fragments interacting by means of Coulomb (+ nuclear) forces. The study is carried out for different distances between the fragments tips and excitation energies. For a given deformation, the fragment's total energy is computed via the constrained Hartree-Fock + BCS formalism. The total excitation energy present in the fragments is supposed to contribute only to the fragments deformation and the asymptotic value of the kinetic energy is equated to the inter-fragment potential at scission. These two constraints yield not more than one or two fission channels for a fixed tip distance and excitation energy. Discarding those fission channels corresponding to a disequilibrated sharing of the excitation energy between the two fragments, we were able to establish the most likely scission configurations for a specified excitation energy.