Bimodal fission in binary and ternary spontaneous fission of ²⁵²Cf

The hot bimodal fission of Cf-252 is reexamined with new high-statistics data. We constructed a coincidence cube for binary fission and LCP-gated gamma-gamma matrix for ternary fission. By identifying the secondary fission fragments from their gamma-ray transitions, we measured the yields for various fission splits. The normal neutron yield distribution is found to be Gaussian for Xe-Ru. However, the binary fission split of Ba-Mo is found to exhibit a bimodal neutron distribution with the "hot mode" corresponding to approximate to 3.1% of the total yield. In a ternary fission, the first measurements of yields for specific fission splits are presented. The Te-alpha-Ru and Xe-alpha-Mo neutron yields fit well with a single mode, but the Ba-alpha-Zr split shows evidence for an enhanced hot mode with an intensity of approximate to 13.8% of the normal mode.