Towards Microscopic Descriptions of Thermal Fission Rates

The studies of thermal fission rates are relevant to novel reactors, astrophysical environments, and survival probabilities of compound superheavy nuclei. This has been conventionally studied by the Bohr-Wheeler statistical model that depends on phenomenological level densities and fission barriers. In this context, we propose to study the thermal fission rates based on microscopic temperature dependent nuclear energy density functional theory. The microscopic temperature dependent fission barrier heights and curvatures, and collective mass parameters can be self-consistently obtained. The fission lifetimes from low to high temperatures can be given by the imaginary free energy method in a consistent framework. Microscopic temperature dependent fission barriers play an essential role in fission studies.