Excitation-energy sharing in uranium induced dissipative collisions

Strongly damped collisions were studied in uranium induced reactions on¹¹⁰Pd and¹²⁴Sn target nuclei near the barrier. The excitation-energy splitting was deduced from binary reaction yields and those in which the heavy fragment undergoes sequential fission. For systems with 87≦Z≦95 for the heavy fragment, the excitation energy is concentrated in the lighter nucleus, at best shared equally. The results indicate a non-equilibrated energy dissipation, and support nucleon exchange based on average single-particle strength functions as the underlying dissipation mechanism at the barrier.