ON THE EXTENSION OF THE PERIODIC SYSTEM INTO THE SECTORS OF STRANGENESS AND ANTIMATTER

Abstract

After a brief review of the standard extension of the periodic system into the islands of superheavy elements and out to the proton and neutron drip lines, we shall discuss its continuation into the sectors of antimatter and strangeness. A tremendously rich scenario of new nuclear structure emerges, with new magic numbers in the strangeness domain and new forms of nuclear clusters combined of p, n, Λ, Σ, Ξ, etc. The production mechanisms for these objects and for antinuclei rest in high energetic heavy-ion collisions. Various possibilities are discussed, some of them quantitatively.