Threshold fragmentation under dipole forces

The threshold law for N-body fragmentation under dipole forces is formulate d. It emerges from the energy dependence of the normalization of the correl ated continuum wave function for N fragments. It is shown that the dipole t hreshold law plats a key role in understanding all threshold fragmentation phenomena since it links the classical threshold law for long-range Coulomb interactions to the statistical law for short-range interactions. Futhermo re, a tunnelling mechanism is identified as the common feature which occurs for all three classes of interactions, short-range, dipole and Coulomb.