A New Radioactive Decay Mode, True Ternary Fission, the Decay of Heavy Nuclei Into Three Comparable Fragments

The ternary cluster decay of heavy nuclei has been observed in several experiments with binary coincidences between two fragments using detector telescopes (the FOBOS-detectors, JINR, Dubna) placed on the opposite sides from the source of fissioning nuclei. The binary coincidences at a relative angle of 180$^0$ deg. correspond to binary fission or to the decay into three cluster fragments by registration of two nuclei with different masses (e.g.$^{132}$Sn,$^{52-48}$Ca,$^{68-72}$Ni). This marks a new step in the physics of fission-phenomena of heavy nuclei. These experimental results for the collinear cluster tripartition (CCT), refer to the decay into three clusters of comparable masses. In the present work we discuss the various aspects of this ternary fission (FFF) mode. The question of collinearity is analysed on the basis of recent publications. Further insight into the possible decay modes is obtained by the discussion of the path towards larger deformation, towards hyper-deformation and by inspecting details of the potential energy surfaces (PES). In the path towards the extremely deformed states leading to ternary fission, the concept of deformed shells is most important. At the scission configuration the phase space determined by the PES's leads to the final mass distributions. The possibility of formation of fragments of almost equal size ($Z_i$ = 32, 34, 32, for $Z$=98) and the observation of several other fission modes in the same system can be predicted by the PES. The PES's show pronounced minima and valleys, namely for several mass/charge combinations of ternary fragments, which correspond to a variety of collinear ternary fission (multi-modal) decays. The case of the decay of $^{252}$Cf(sf,fff) turns out to be unique due to the presence of deformed shells in the total system and of closed shells in all three nuclei in the decay.