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 ${}_{}{}^{16}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{O}$ + ${}_{}{}^{238}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{U}$ and ${}_{}{}^{32}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{S}$ + ${}_{}{}^{208}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Pb}$ reactions. The results are discussed in terms of the "extra-push" model of Swiatecki.