Fission-fragment mass distributions from Brownian shape motion

This is a progress report on collaborative work with Peter Moller aimed at calculating fission-fragment mass dDistributions on the basis of (existing) multi-dimensional deformationD-energy surfaces. Preliminary studies show that simple random walks on the potential-energy landscape yield remarkably good reproduction of experimentally observed mass yields, as will be demonstrated. The physics motivation for such a treatment will be presented and a number of remaining issues will be discussed.