FISSION OF METAL CLUSTERS

Advances achieved during recent years in model and ab initio descriptions of fission of metal clusters are reviewed. We focus on developments in ab initio treatment of the electronic subsystem within the jellium background model, as well as on applications of potential energy surface analysis to determining the characteristics of the fission process. We reiterate the main results obtained with the implementation of the Hartree–Fock and local density schemes for the two-center deformed jellium model. We overview the influences of the geometrical and statistical factors on the parameters of the fission process revealed recently. Also, we overview concisely the classical liquid drop model, the shell correction method, the asymmetric two-center-oscillator shell model, and the main approaches to the molecular dynamics simulations of the fission process.