2014 Superheavy elements have been searched for by neutron induced fission of mass separated samples. Various natural materials have been investigated : minerals, manganese nodules, lunar dust, meteoritic materials. Fissioning masses have been collected in the A = 300 mass region. However, one cannot conclude that these masses are superheavy elements because of a possible contamination of this ...

Magic islands for extra-stable nuclei in the midst of the sea of fission-instability were predicted to be around Z=114, 124 or, 126 with N=184, and Z=120, with N=172. Whether these fissionsurvived superheavy nuclei with high Z and N would live long enough for detection or, undergo alpha-decay in a very short time remains an open question. Alpha-decay half lives of nuclei with 130 ≥ Z ≥ 100 have...

Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) can be a signal from very early (post-infationary) Universe. At this cosmological epoch Topological Defects (TD) and long lived superheavy (SH) particles are expected to be naturally and effectively produced. Both of these relics can produce now the particles, such as protons and photons, with energies in a great excess of what is observed in UHECR, E ∼ 10 ...

D.M. Gitman, A.D. Levin, I.V. Tyutin, and B.L. Voronov Institute of Physics, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, Russia The electronic struture of an atom with Z ≤ Zc = 137 can be described by the Dirac equation with the Coulomb field of a point charge Ze. It was believed that the Dirac equation with Z > Zc is inconsistent and physically meaningless because the f...

In preparation of chemical studies with superheavy elements around Z = 114, the adsorption behavior of these elements and their lighter homologs on different metals has been predicted based on (semi-)empirical models and extrapolations (see e.g. [1, 2]). Adsorption studies with SHE homologs were performed on various metals, especially metals of group 10 and 11 (see e.g. [3]). The experimental r...

Background: The nuclear fission process is a dramatic example of the large-amplitude collective motion in which nucleus undergoes series shape changes before splitting into distinct fragments. This can be represented by pathway many-dimensional space coordinates. Within stationary framework rooted static Schr\"odinger equation, action along determines spontaneous half-lives as well mass and cha...

Laser ion acceleration driven by the utmost intense laser pulses pushes superheavy gold ions to unprecedented energies, key for applications ranging from nuclear physics next-generation accelerators.

A. STASZCZAK, J. DOBACZEWSKI, W. NAZAREWICZ Department of Theoretical Physics, Institute of Physics, Maria Curie-Sk lodowska University, pl. M. Curie-Sk lodowskiej 1, 20-031 Lublin, Poland Department of Physics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, Knoxville, USA Physics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O.Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA Institute of Theoretical Physics, Wa...

The quest for superheavy elements (SHEs) is driven by the desire to find and explore one of the extreme limits of existence of matter. These elements exist solely due to their nuclear shell stabilization. All 15 presently 'known' SHEs (11 are officially 'discovered' and named) up to element 118 are short-lived and are man-made atom-at-a-time in heavy ion induced nuclear reactions. They are iden...