Light charged particles emitted in fission reactions induced by protons on Pb-208

Light charged particles emitted in proton-induced fission reactions on Pb-208 have been measured at different kinetic energies: 370A, 500A, and 650A MeV. The experiment was performed by the SOFIA Collaboration at the GSI facilities in Darmstadt (Germany). The inverse kinematics technique was combined with a setup especially designed to measure light charged particles in coincidence with fission fragments. This measurement allowed us, for the first time, to obtain correlations between the light charged particles emitted during the fission process and the charge distributions of the fission fragments. These correlations were compared with different model calculations to assess the ground-to-saddle dynamics. The results confirm that transient and dissipative effects are required for an accurate description of the fission observables.