Narrowing the Gap Between Theory and Evaluations: Angular Momentum Distributions in Fission Fragments

We present a microscopic framework for predicting angular momentum distributions over the full range of fission fragment masses and charges. For the neutron-induced fission of ${}^{235}$U and ${}^{239}$Pu, the obtained distributions exhibit a pronounced sawtooth pattern in average values, reveal a substantial isobaric dependence, and reproduce experimental photon multiplicities without adjustable parameters. These results demonstrate that microscopic theory is gradually becoming quantitatively competitive with phenomenological models.