Nonequilibrium excitation-energy division in deeply inelastic collisions

The division of the excitation energy between the projectile-like and target-like fragment was measured for /sup 56/Fe+/sup 236/U at 8.5 MeV/A incident energy. The excitation energy in the heavy fragment was determined from the mass asymmetry of fission fragments coincident with projectile-like fragments. For total energy losses between 30 and 70 MeV the excitation energy is found to divide more nearly equally than predicted by thermal equilibrium models and is in good agreement with expectations based on nucleon exchange models.