KEWPIE2: A cascade code for the study of dynamical decay of excited nuclei

Submitted to Computer Physics CommunicationsInternational audienceKEWPIE — a cascade code devoted to investigating the dynamical decay of excited nuclei, specially designed for treating very low probability events related to the synthesis of super-heavy nuclei formed in fusion-evaporation reactions — has been improved and rewritten in C++ programing language to become KEWPIE2. The current version of the code comprises various nuclear models concerning the light-particle emission, fission process and statistical properties of excited nuclei. General features of the code, such as the numerical scheme and the main physical ingredients, are described in detail. Some typical calculations having been performed in the present paper clearly show that theoretical predictions are generally in accordance with experimental data. Furthermore, since the values of some input parameters cannot be determined neither theoretically nor experimentally, a sensibility analysis is presented. To this end, we systematically investigate the effects of using different parameter values and reaction models on the final results. As expected, in the case of heavy nuclei, the fission process has the most crucial role to play in theoretical predictions. This work would be essential for numerical modeling of fusion-evaporation reactions