Space parity violation in nuclear fission

Space parity violation in low energy fission was observed by the Soviet physicists in 1977 in the course of the angular distribution investigations of the light and heavy fragments in the polarized thermal neutron fission of 233,235U and 239Pu. Unexpected large values of the P-odd asymmetry coefficients (αnf ∼ 10-4) were obtained in the angular distribution W(0) = 1 + bar αnf (bar σn · pf). So large values of αnf looked very strange because of the existence of numerous different exit channels in fission process (∼108 - 1010) and a small relative value of nonconserving space parity potential of the weak NN-interaction (∼ 10-7). In addition to the P-violating asymmetry bar αnf P-conserving right-left asymmetry of the fission fragment angular distribution W (θ) = 1 + α RLnf pf · αn x pf was observed in 1979. The main goal of the new experimental investigations of P-odd and P-even effects in fission was a search of the possible relationships between the asymmetry coefficients and the characteristics of the entrance and exit channels in slow neutron fission. In this paper the brief review of the experimental results obtained by different groups is given. The main part of these results have been obtained at the WWR-M reactor of Leningrad Nuclear Physics Institute (LNPI)