Modern Physics Letters A · 1986 · 17 citations · 0 references
Within the 2-center shell model we present an explanation for the mass and total-kinetic-energy distributions of fission products of very heavy nuclei called “bimodal fission.” For the case of 258 FM we show that the symmetric fission can be described by a 2-dimensional treatment of the elongation and neck degree of freedom. Owing to shell corrections the system fissions via two decay channels that have distinct kinetic energies.