The cold fragmentation of /sup 234/U in /sup 233/U (n/sub th/, f)

The transformation of the uranium nucleus into a separated two fragment configuration has been found to be possible without appreciably heating the fragments via intrinsic excitation or deformation. A small part of the fragmentations in thermal neutron induced fission proceeds with a release of mutual kinetic energy of the fission fragments, which is not far from the total Q-value of each fragmentation 1 permille of all fragmentations occur with an excitation energy smaller than 7 MeV, an excitation energy of the fragments not larger than the excitation energy of the fissioning nucleus after thermal neutron capture. (12 refs).