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Nuclear fission; charged particle-induced fission; heavy ions; fission angular distributions; mass distributions; fission barrier; moment of inertia; shell effect in fission.

The nuclear fission phenomenon continues to be an enigma, even after nearly 75 years of its discovery. Considerable progress has been made towards understanding the fission process. Both light projectiles and heavy ions have been employed to investigate nuclear fission. An extensive database of the properties of fissionable nuclei has been generated. The theoretical developments to describe the fission phenomenon have kept pace with the progress in the corresponding experimental measurements. As the fission process initiated by the neutrons has been well documented, the present article will be restricted to charged particle-induced fission reactions. The progress made in recent years and the prospects in the area of nuclear fission research will be the focus of this review.

S Kailas^{1 2} K Mahata¹

1. Nuclear Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai 400 085, India
2. University of Mumbai-Department of Atomic Energy Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, Mumbai 400 098, India

Manuscript received

17 April 2014

Manuscript revised

13 June 2014

Accepted

15 July 2014

Early published

15 November 2014