  Eighty years after its experimental discovery, a microscopic description of
induced nuclear fission based solely on the interactions between neutrons and
protons and quantum many-body methods still poses formidable challenges. The
goal of this paper is to contribute to the development of a predictive
microscopic framework for the accurate calculation of static properties of
fission fragments for hot fission and thermal or slow neutrons. To this end, we
focus on the 239Pu(n,f) reaction and employ nuclear density functional theory
with Skyrme energy densities. Potential energy surfaces are computed at the
Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov approximation with up to five collective variables. We
find that the triaxial degree of freedom plays an important role, both near the
fission barrier and at scission. The impact of the parameterization of the
Skyrme energy density on deformation properties from the ground-state up to
scission is also quantified. We introduce a general template for the detailed
description of fission fragment properties. It is based on the careful analysis
of the scission point, using both advanced topological methods and recently
proposed quantum many-body techniques. We conclude that an accurate prediction
of fission fragment properties at low incident neutron energies, although
technologically demanding, should be within the reach of current nuclear
density functional theory.
