  Ternary fission probabilities for thermal neutron induced fission of
plutonium are analyzed within the framework of an evaporation-based model where
the complexity of time-varying potentials, associated with the neck collapse,
are included in a simplistic fashion. If the nuclear temperature at scission
and the fission-neck-collapse time are assumed to be ~1.2 MeV and ~10^-22 s,
respectively, then calculated relative probabilities of ternary-fission
light-charged-particle emission follow the trends seen in the experimental
data. The ability of this model to reproduce ternary fission probabilities
spanning seven orders of magnitude for a wide range of light-particle charges
and masses implies that ternary fission is caused by the coupling of an
evaporation-like process with the rapid re-arrangement of the nuclear fluid
following scission.
