Purpose: The study of asymmetric and symmetric fission of 180,182,183Hg and 178Pt nuclei as a function of their excitation energy and isospin.

Methods: Mass-energy distributions of fission fragments of 180Hg, 178Pt (two protons less than 180Hg), and 182Hg (two neutrons more than 180Hg) formed in the 36Ar+144Sm,142Nd, and 40Ca+142Nd reactions were measured at energies near and above the Coulomb barrier. Fission of 183Hg obtained in the reaction of 40Ca with 143Nd was also investigated to see if one extra neutron could lead to dramatic changes in the fission process due to the shape-staggering effect in radii, known in 183Hg.

The measurements were performed with the double-arm time-of-flight spectrometer CORSET.

Results: The observed peculiarities in the fission fragment mass-energy distributions for all studied nuclei may be explained by the presence of a symmetric fission mode and three asymmetric fission modes, manifested by the different total kinetic energies and fragment mass splits. The yield of symmetric mode grows with increasing excitation energy of compound nucleus.

Conclusions: The investigated properties of asymmetric fission of 180,182,183Hg and 178Pt nuclei point out the existence of well-deformed proton shell at Z≈36 and a less deformed proton shell at Z ≈ 46.