The fission of highly charged sodium clusters with fissilities X>1 is studied by {\em ab initio} molecular dynamics. Na_{24}^{4+} is found to undergo predominantly sequential Na_{3}^{+} emission on a time scale of 1 ps, while Na_{24}^{Q+} (5 \leq Q \leq 8) undergoes multifragmentation on a time scale \geq 0.1 ps, with Na^{+} increasingly the dominant fragment as Q increases. All singly-charged fragments Na_{n}^{+} up to size n=6 are observed. The observed fragment spectrum is, within statistical error, independent of the temperature T of the parent cluster for T \leq 1500 K. These findings are consistent with and explain recent trends observed experimentally.
@article{arxiv.physics/0106030,
title = {Charge-Induced Fragmentation of Sodium Clusters},
author = {P. Blaise and S. A. Blundell and C. Guet and Rajendra R. Zope},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0106030},
year = {2009}
}