ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the mass and energy distributions of the fragments in binary fission and examines in more detail some properties of the emitted prompt neutrons and considers only the liquid-drop part of the energy, and examines the predictions of this simple model. The phenomenon of a nucleus undergoing a division into two more or less equal fragments, either spontaneously or induced by some projectile, is termed binary fission. The lifetime in a spontaneous fission process will be determined by the probability of a fragment penetrating the energy barrier, which in turn depends on the shape and height of the barrier. The chapter explores how the shape of the fission barrier is affected by shell correction and the effect of this on various aspects of fission phenomena. The situation is thus analogous to the quantum-mechanical problem of penetration of a free particle through a double-humped barrier.
