Determination of the time evolution of fission from particle emission

Recently measured properties of the prescission particle emission from heavy-ion induced fission of systems with A∼200 were analyzed using the statistical model. Simultaneous fits to prescission neutron, proton, and α-particle multiplicities and mean kinetic energies can be obtained when the deformation dependence of both the particle transmission coefficients and particle binding energies are taken into account. The experimental data are consistent with a total fission time scale of (30±10)×${10}^{\mathrm{-}21}$ s, with more than half of this time being spent beyond the saddle point.