Is thermal equilibrium in strongly damped collisions only apparent?

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Abstract
The dependence of excitation-energy sharing on the direction of the net transfer of mass, observed by Viola and co-workers, is interpreted in terms of the participant-spectator model of Wilczynski and Wilschut. It is demonstrated that the division of the excitation energy in fully damped collisions (proportional to the mass numbers of the fragments) is a natural consequence of the participant-spectator kinematics and therefore it does not necessarily imply temperature equilibration prior to scission.