Quasifission Dynamics in the Formation of Superheavy Elements

Abstract

Abstract. Superheavy elements are created through the fusion of two heavy nuclei. The large Coulomb energy that makes superheavy elements unstable also makes fusion forming a compact compound nucleus very unlikely. Instead, after sticking together for a short time, the two nuclei usually come apart, in a process called quasifission. Mass-angle distributions give the most direct information on the characteristics and time scales of quasifission. A systematic study of carefully chosen mass-angle distributions has provided information on the global trends of quasifission. Large deviations from these systematics at beam energies near the capture barrier reveal the major role played by the nuclear structure of the two colliding nuclei in determining the reaction outcome, and thus implicitly in hindering or favouring superheavy element synthesis.

Colloquium : Superheavy elements: Oganesson and beyond

“…But to get closer to N = 184 is not going to be easy. To find the optimal production methods, systematic fusion reaction studies are being carried out (Hinde et al, 2017;Itkis et al, 2015;Khuyagbaatar et al, 2018;Loveland, 2016). One proposed route involves an enriched 251 Cf target and 58 Fe beam (Rykaczewski et al, 2016).…”

“…The dedicated facilities in Dubna (Dmitriev et al, 2016) and RIKEN (Haba, 2016) will substantially increase the production of superheavy species for physics and chemistry. Other major players in different areas of superheavy nuclei research include GSI/FAIR in Germany (Münzenberg, 2015;Münzenberg et al, 2017), ORNL (Roberto et al, 2015;Roberto and Rykaczewski, 2018) and Berkeley (Gates, 2016;Gates et al, 2015Gates et al, , 2018 in the USA, GANIL in France (Ackermann and Theisen, 2017;Theisen, 2017), and several other major laboratories worldwide (Back, 2017;Hinde et al, 2017;Yang et al, 2013;…”