NUCLEAR-FISSION BEYOND 2-BODY KINEMATICS

Disintegration of a heavy nucleus into three charged fragments with th e one fragment at rest is possible if a certain relation between the m asses and the charges of the moving fragments is fulfilled, A two-arm spectrometer of the angle-velocity-energy correlations has been used a t the 1 GeV proton beam to detect such a process. Disintegrations with all three moving fragments have also been observed. The possibility o f the identification of the collinear three-body splitting of heavy nu clei at low energies is discussed.