Experimental signatures of quasifission reactions

The features of fission fragment angular distributions are shown to be sensitive to the occurrence of nonequilibrium processes such as quasifission. This conclusion is based on a quantitative analysis of the angular distributions of near-symmetric masses produced in /sup 16/O+ /sup 238/U and /sup 32/S+ /sup 208/Pb reactions. The results are discussed in terms of the ''extra-push'' model of Swiatecki.