Super Heavy Elements

Abstract

The research on superheavy elements is of great interest in atomic and nuclear physics as well as in chemistry. One the one hand side these very exotic nuclides at the upper end of the nuclear chart owe their very existence to nuclear shell effects that stabilize them against immediate disintegration by spontaneous fission. On the other hand these elements experience very strong relativistic effects that impact their electronic structure and their chemical properties. At the GSI Darmstadt and the Helmholtz-Institute Mainz a comprehensive approach is followed addressing all these different research areas in experiments utilizing a suite of experimental installations. These comprise the recoil separators SHIP and TASCA, the Penning trap mass spectrometer SHIPTRAP, the chemistry beam line ARTESIA, and numerous versatile setups for gas-phase chemistry, laser spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, and decay spectroscopy of the heaviest elements. In this article select recent highlights are briefly reviewed and some of the most relevant developments for future experiments are addressed.