Abstract
After more than half a century of research addressing the synthesis and nuclear structure of superheavy nuclei (SHN) a boost for its progress is expected from the advent of new instrumentation. An order of magnitude in beam intensity increase is envisaged to be provided by new powerful accelerators like the new DC280 cyclotron at the SHE factory of FLNR/JINR or the superconducting linac at SPIRAL2 of GANIL. In addition new ion-optical installations like the separator-spectrometer set-up S3 with two complementary detection systems SIRIUS and LEB will provide a substantial sensitivity increase for classically pursued routes like decay spectroscopy after separation (DSAS), and alternative and complementary methods like high precision mass measurements and laser spectroscopy. Decay spectroscopy has proven in the past to be a powerful tool to study the low lying nuclear structure of heavy and superheavy nuclei. Single particle levels and other structure features likeK isomerism, being important in the fermium-nobelium region as well as for tracing deformation towards spherical shell stabilised SHN, have been investigated almost up to the limit posed by the sensitivity of present-day instrumentation. Precision mass measurements and laser spectroscopy will offer the possibility to study alternative features like atomic and nuclear binding energies, nuclear charge radii and quadrupolemoments.
Highlights
Nuclei beyond fermium-rutherfordium owe their existence solely to quantum mechanics
For in-beam spectroscopy which gives access to nuclear structure at higher spins like e.g. rotational bands, we refer to the recent review by Theisen et al and references therein [5]
The experimental tools employed in the field, composed of highly efficient and selective separators and spectrometers combined with highly sensitive detection arrays for particles and photons, are recently complemented by alternative approaches with precision mass measurements, using devices like Penning traps [9] and Multi-Reflection Time of Flight Mass Spectrometers (MR ToF MS), and laser spectroscopy installations [10], which give access to basic properties of those heavy nuclei like binding energies, charge radii and quadrupole moments
Summary
Nuclei beyond fermium-rutherfordium owe their existence solely to quantum mechanics. In that region of the chart of nuclei the fission barrier derived from a macroscopic liquid drop approach would vanish [1], which gives rise to the nuclear physicists definition of a superheavy nucleus (SHN). These studies have the potential to provide links to the heavier spherical closed shell nuclei, by investigating single particle levels [4] close to the fermi energy which according to some models play a major role in defining the spherical shell gaps in the region of the so-called island of stability.
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