Synthesis and Study of Superheavy Elements

Abstract

Results of experiments on the synthesis of superheavy nuclei in 48 Ca-induced reactions are presented. The experiments were carried out at the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions (FLNR) Dubna heavy ion cyclotron U400 in the framework of a large collaboration: FLNR (JINR, Dubna, Russia), IAR (Dimitrovgrad, Russia), LLNL (Livermore, USA), ORNL (Oak-Ridge, USA) and Vanderbilt University (Nashville, USA). Enriched isotopes of U÷Cf were used as targets. In the reactions studied in 2000-2011, decays of the heaviest isotopes of Rf÷Cn and isotopes of six new elements 113÷118 were observed. The discovery of the elements 114 and 116 has been recognized by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) in June 2011.