Possible reference method of total excitation energy partition between complementary fission fragments

A method of total excitation energy (TXE) partition between fully-accelerated fission fragments based exclusively on the systematic behaviour of experimental upsilon(A) (upsilon(H)/upsilon(pair) as a function of A(H) being parameterized) is proposed. This TXE partition method has the advantage to be not dependent on models and assumptions made at scission and in this sense it can be taken as a possible reference method. From this TXE partition applied on many fissioning systems a general parameterization of the fragment residual temperature ratio RT = T-L/T-H as a function of A(H) is obtained, giving the possibility to predict prompt fission quantities as a function of fragment. Other TXE partition methods (based on models and assumptions at scission or on equal residual temperatures of complementary fragments at full acceleration) are compared to this one, revealing limits of applicability as well as the sensibility of prompt neutron emission models to the TXE partition. The behaviour of experimental v(A) with the increase of incident energy consisting in the multiplicity increase for heavy fragments only, is argued and entirely supported by the quantitative Point-by-Point model results of v(A) describing very well the experimental upsilon(A) of Np-237(n, f) at 0.8 and 5.5 MeV incident energies. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.