Nuclear friction and lifetime of induced fission

Abstract
Induced nuclear fission is described as a transport process of the fission degree of freedom over the fission barrier. The lifetime of the event is defined in terms of the probability of finding the nuclear system in the potential well corresponding to the ground-state deformation. This definition appears as a natural generalization to nonstationary transport processes of the usual expression for the lifetime. Using the conservation law for the current we relate the lifetime to the time-integrated escape rate across the collective potential barrier.