Nuclear fission process is one of the most important discoveries of the twentieth century. In these 75 years since its discovery, the nuclear fission related research has not only provided new insights in the physics of large scale motion, deformation and subsequent division of a heavy nucleus, but has also opened several new frontiers of research in nuclear physics. This article is a narrative giving an overview of the landmarks of the progress in the field.

Nuclear fission studies in Trombay began nearly six decades ago, with the commissioning of the APSARA research reactor. Early experimental work was based on mass, kinetic energy distributions, neutron and X-ray emission in thermal neutron fission of ²³⁵U, which were carried out with indigenously developed detectors and electronics instrumentation. With the commissioning of CIRUS reactor and the availability of higher neutron flux, advanced experiments were carried out on ternary fission, pre-scission neutron emission, fragment charge distributions, quarternary fission, etc. In the late eighties, heavy-ion beams from the pelletron-based medium energy heavy-ion accelerator were available, which provided a rich variety of possibilities in nuclear fission studies. Pioneering work on fragment angular distributions, fission time-scales, transfer-induced fission, 𝛾-ray multiplicities and mass–energy correlations were carried out, providing important information on the dynamics of the fission process. More recently, work on fission fragment 𝛾-ray spectroscopy has been initiated, to understand the nuclear structure aspects of the neutron-rich fission fragment nuclei. There have also been parallel efforts to carry out theoretical studies in the areas of shell effects, superheavy nuclei, fusion–fission dynamics, fragment angular distributions, etc. to complement the experimental studies. This paper will provide a glimpse of the work carried out by the fission group at Trombay in the above-mentioned topics.

Since the discovery of nuclear fission in the year 1939, both physical and radiochemical techniques have been adopted for the study of various aspects of the phenomenon. Due to the ability to separate individual elements from a complex reaction mixture with a high degree of sensitivity and selectivity, a chemist plays a significant role in the measurements of mass, charge, kinetic energy, angular momentum and angular distribution of fission products in various fissioning systems. At Trombay, a small group of radiochemists initiated the work on radiochemical studies of mass distribution in the early sixties. Since then, radiochemical investigations on various fission observables have been carried out at Trombay in 𝑛, 𝑝, 𝛼 and heavy-ion-induced fissions. An attempt has been made to highlight the important findings of such studies in this paper, with an emphasis on medium energy and heavy-ion-induced fission.

Fission instabilities induced by mechanical and thermal stresses on intermediate nuclear systems in heavy-ion reactions are poorly understood but should reveal independent evidence for the nuclear equation of state (EoS), notably the tensile strength of finite nuclei. Experimental evidence is presented in support of a new mode of prompt fission of the composite nucleus formed in central ⁷⁸Kr+⁴⁰Ca collisions at only a few MeV per nucleon above the interaction barrier. The new process recalls the ‘L-window for fusion’ phenomenon, which was predicted by the early reaction theory and reappears in modern DFT model calculations.

The discovery of nuclear fission in 1938–1939 had a profound influence on the field of nuclear physics and it brought this branch of physics into the forefront as it was recognized for having the potential for its seminal influence on modern society. Although many of the basic features of actinide fission were described in a ground-breaking paper by Bohr and Wheeler only six months after the discovery, the fission process is very complex and it has been a challenge for both experimentalists and theorists to achieve a complete and satisfactory understanding of this phenomenon. Many aspects of nuclear physics are involved in fission and it continues to be a subject of intense study even three quarters of a century after its discovery. In this talk, I will review an incomplete subset of the major milestones in fission research, and briefly discuss some of the topics that I have been involved in during my career. These include studies of vibrational resonances and fission isomers that are caused by the second minimum in the fission barrier in actinide nuclei, studies of heavy-ion-induced fission in terms of the angular distributions and the mass–angle correlations of fission fragments. Some of these studies provided evidence for the importance of the quasifission process and the attendant suppression of the complete fusion process. Finally, some of the circumstances around the establishment of large-scale nuclear research in India will be discussed.

It is now established that the transition-state theory of nuclear fission due to Bohr and Wheeler underestimates several observables in heavy-ion-induced fusion–fission reactions. Dissipative dynamical models employing either the Langevin equation or equivalently the Fokker–Planck equation have been developed for fission of heavy nuclei at high excitations (T ∼1 MeV or higher). Here, we first present the physical picture underlying the dissipative fission dynamics. We mainly concentrate upon the Kramers’ prescription for including dissipation in fission dynamics. We discuss, in some detail, the results of a statistical model analysis of the pre-scission neutron multiplicity data from the reactions ¹⁹F+^194,196,198Pt using Kramers’ fission width. We also discuss the multi-dimensional Langevin equation in the context of kinetic energy and mass distribution of the fission fragments.

In the final phases of fission process, there are fast collective rotational degrees of freedom, which can exert a force on the slower tilting rotational degree. Experimental observations that lead to this realization and theoretical studies that account for dynamics of the processes are discussed briefly. Supported by these studies, and by assuming a conditional equilibrium of the collective rotational modes at a pre-scission point, a new statistical model for fission fragment angular and spin distributions has been developed. This model gives a consistent description of the fragment angular and spin distributions for a wide variety of heavy- and light-ion-induced fission reactions.

Statistical model analysis is carried out for 𝑝- and 𝛼-induced fission reactions using a consistent description for fission barrier and level density in A ∼ 200 mass region. A continuous damping of shell correction with excitation energy is considered. Extracted fission barriers agree well with the recent microscopic–macroscopic model. The shell corrections at the saddle point were found to be insignificant.

Study of quasifission reaction mechanism and shell effects in compound nuclei has important implications on the synthesis of superheavy elements (SHE). Using the major accelerator facilities available in India, quasifission reaction mechanism and shell effects in compound nuclei were studied extensively. Fission fragment mass distribution was used as a probe. Two factors, viz., nuclear orientation and direction of mass flow of the initial dinuclear system after capture were seen to determine the extent of quasifission. From the measurement of fragment mass distribution in 𝛼-induced reaction on actinide targets, it was possible to constrain the excitation energy at which nuclear shell effect washed out.

Synthesis of heavy and superheavy elements is severely hindered by fission and fission-like processes. The probability of these fission-like, non-equilibrium processes strongly depends on the entrance channel parameters. This article attempts to summarize the recent experimental findings and classify the signatures of these non-equilibrium processes based on macroscopic variables. The importance of the sticking time of the dinuclear complex with respect to the equilibration times of various degrees of freedom is emphasized.

In this article, some of our recent results on fission fragment/product angular distributions are discussed in the context of non-compound nucleus fission. Measurement of fission fragment angular distribution in ²⁸Si+¹⁷⁶Yb reaction did not show a large contribution from the non-compound nucleus fission. Data on the evaporation residue cross-sections, in addition to those on mass and angular distributions, are necessary for better understanding of the contribution from non-compound nucleus fission in the pre-actinide region. Measurement of mass-resolved angular distribution of fission products in ²⁰Ne+²³²Th reaction showed an increase in angular anisotropy with decreasing asymmetry of mass division. This observation can be explained based on the contribution from pre-equilibrium fission. Results of these studies showed that the mass dependence of anisotropy may possibly be used to distinguish pre-equilibrium fission and quasifission.

This paper summarizes the results of some of the recent fusion–fission experiments carried out at the National Array of Neutron Detectors (NAND) Phase-01 installed at the Pelletron+LINAC accelerator facility of Inter-University Accelerator Centre (IUAC), New Delhi. Pre-scission neutron multiplicity excitation functions are measured for the ^213,215,217Fr, ^{210,212,214,216}Rn and ^206,210Po compound nuclei populated through the fusion of the ¹⁹F+^194,196,198Pt, ^16,18O+^194,198Pt and ¹²C+^194,198Pt systems, respectively. Pre-scission neutron yields from these reactions are compared with the extensive statistical model calculations to look for the effects due to the compound nucleus shell closure, 𝑁/𝑍 ratio of the compound nucleus, magnitude of the saddle-point shell corerction and fission time-scale.

An overview of the experimental result on simultaneous measurement of pre-scission neutron, proton, 𝛼-particle and GDR 𝛾-ray multiplicities for the reaction ²⁸Si+¹⁷⁵Lu at 159 MeV using the BARC–TIFR Pelletron–LINAC accelerator facility is given. The data were analysed using deformation-dependent particle transmission coefficients, binding energies and level densities which are incorporated in the code JOANNE2 to extract fission time-scales and mean deformation of the saddle-to-scission emitter. The neutron, light charged particle and GDR 𝛾-ray multiplicity data could be explained consistently. The emission of neutrons seems to be favoured towards larger deformation as compared to charged particles. The pre-saddle time-scale is deduced as (0–2) × 10⁻²¹ s whereas the saddle-to-scission time-scale is (36–39) × 10⁻²¹ s. The total fission time-scale is deduced as (36–41) × 10⁻²¹ s.

A 4𝜋 light charged particle spectrometer, called 8𝜋 LP, is in operation at the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, Italy, for studying reaction mechanisms in low-energy heavy-ion reactions. Besides about 300 telescopes to detect light charged particles, the spectrometer is also equipped with an anular PPAC system to detect evaporation residues and a two-arm time-of-flight spectrometer to detect fission fragments. The spectrometer has been used in several fission dynamics studies using as a probe light charged particles in the fission and evaporation residues (ER) channels. This paper proposes a journey within some open questions about the fission dynamics and a review of the main results concerning nuclear dissipation and fission time-scale obtained from several of these studies. In particular, the advantages of using systems of intermediate fissility will be discussed.

We discuss the role of nuclear viscosity in hindering the fission of heavy nuclei as observed in the experimental measurements of GDR 𝛾-ray spectra from the fissioning nuclei. We review a set of experiments carried out and reported by us previously [see Dioszegi et al, Phys. Rev. C 61, 024613 (2000); Shaw et al, Phys. Rev. C 61, 044612 (2000)] and argue that the nuclear viscosity parameter has no apparent dependence on temperature. However, it may depend upon the deformation of the nucleus.

A possibility for the formation of three reaction products having comparable masses at the spontaneous fission of ²⁵²Cf is theoretically explored. This work is aimed to study the mechanism leading to the observation of the reaction products with masses $M_{1}$ = 136–140 and $M_{2}$ = 68–72 in coincidence with the FOBOS group in JINR. The same type of ternary fission decay has been observed in the ²³⁵U(n_th, fff) reaction. The potential energy surface (PES) for the ternary system forming a collinear nuclear chain is calculated for a wide range of masses and charge numbers of the constituent nuclei. The results of the PES for the tripartition of ²⁵²Cf(sf, fff) allows us to establish dynamical conditions leading to the formation of fragments with mass combinations of clusters ⁶⁸⁻⁷⁰Ni with ^130−132Sn and with the missing cluster ⁴⁸⁻⁵²Ca.