Systematics of production cross sections and predictions for the synthesis of new superheavy elements

Abstract

A systematic analysis of hot fusion reactions with a comparison to experimental cross sections related to the synthesis of superheavy elements is carried out using the hivap code. A single parameter set is found which when implemented in the hivap computer code, describes experimental production cross sections for reactions using a $^{48}\mathrm{Ca}$ beam on actinide targets reasonably well. A simple scaling based on the mass asymmetry of the projectile-target system is introduced for projectiles lighter than $^{48}\mathrm{Ca}$. It is seen that only three parameters scaled by a constant factor are required to describe cross-section data obtained using lighter projectiles. The projectile dependence on the production cross section is also studied. From these investigations, new reactions with $^{48}\mathrm{Ca}$ incident on various actinide targets are proposed for the production of unknown heavier isotopes of $Z=116$ and 118 and for the synthesis of new superheavy elements with $Z=119$ and 120.