Fission process from saddle to scission: a phenomenological perspective

The pre-scission kinetic energy and dissipation energy deduced from physical measurements for the fission of /sup 236/U are found to be reasonable and consistent with the potential energy difference between the saddle and scission points provided scission is assumed to occur with a finite neck radius of approx.2 fm. A nearly linear correlation is observed between the proton odd-even effect in fission and the sum of the excitation energy at the saddle point plus the dissipation energy. Prescission kinetic energies deduced by two methods are shown to agree reasonably well with those calculated with a wall-and-window type dissipation mechanism.