The fission of heated nuclei in reactions involving heavy ions: static and dynamical aspects

The various aspects of the formation of the fragment mass-energy distributions from the fission of excited nuclei in the range Z(2)/A = 20-43 in heavy-ion reactions are reviewed. These are: the actual temperature of the fissioning nucleus after the emission of prefission particles, the effect of the angular momentum transferred to the nucleus by the incident ion, the static features of the formation of the fragment distributions of very light nuclei, the role and nature of dynamical effects in the descent of the nucleus from the saddle point to the scission point in the case of heavy nuclei, and the properties of quasi-fission. A fairly complete summary is given of both the experimental data on all these aspects and the theoretical understanding based on current ideas about the fission process. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.