Simple estimates of excitation energy sharing between heavy and light fragments in heavy-ion reactions.

Qualitative arguments are used to estiamte the ratio of excitation energies between heavy and light fragments for asymmetric heavy-ion collisions. The value of this quantity is linked to the relative role played by inelastic and transfer degrees of freedom and thereby to an approximate function of the total kinetic energy loss. A numerical analysis that confirms the trends anticipated by the simple arguments is performed for the reactions /sup 56/Fe+ /sup 238/U and /sup 86/Kr+ /sup 208/Pb at bombarding energies in the laboratory of 476 and 1565 MeV, respectively.