Fission of a slab of charged nuclear matter in the time-dependent hartree fock (TDHF) theory

The time evolution of a slab of charged nuclear matter is studied within the TDHF method as a function of the initial conditions. The effective interaction is of Skyrme type plus a repulsive Yukawa interaction representing the Coulomb repulsion. The implications on the time evolution of specific collective as well as intrinsic excitations are investigated. Fission is found to occur at large enough excitation energies for a variety of initial conditions after timest _fi ≈(1–3)·10^?21 s. The final disintegration of the slab (“snatching”) is characterized by arapid rise of a potential barrier between the nascent fragments, the rise occurring int _sn≈0.2·10^?21 s. The importance for the fission process of the reflection symmetry of the occupied single particle states is demonstrated.