Isotopes Of Superheavy Elements Research Articles

First attempt to chemically identify element 112

The first attempt to chemically identify one of the recently discovered long-lived isotopes of superheavy elements, namely 283112 (3 min, SF), made at FLNR, Dubna is reported. The nuclide was produced by fusion of accelerated 48Ca with a target of natural U, which contained some Nd to simultaneously produce also short-lived Hg nuclides. According to test experiments with Hg, the expected lighter homologue of element 112, both elements can be isolated from the products of the bombardment in metallic state, and transported from the target in flowing He gas to a detection system, where spontaneous fission and alpha decays 49-s 185Hg) were registered using PIPS detectors. The surface of the detectors was covered with a thin layer of Au or Pd which ensured the detection of Hg with high efficiency due to its chemisorption on these surfaces. While about three SF events could be expected, not a single one was detected at an upper limit for the production cross section of about one picobarn. This may point to a "Rn-like" rather than "Hg-like" behavior of element 112. A new experiment is planned, in which both a "Rn-like" and a "Hg-like" species could be detected.

On the quest of production of superheavy nuclei in reactions of 48Ca with the heaviest cctinide targets

The sequence of radioactive decays of an unknown isotope produced in a rare fusion reaction to known lighter isotopes is used to identify mass and atomic number of the mother isotope, which has been separated before from the bulk of other reaction products by an in-flight recoil separator. By this technique the elements 107 to 112 were produced by single atom decay-chain analysis. Such a correlation technique reaches its limit by the occurrence of accidental sequences and it collapses beyond a maximum possible correlation time, at which a true event cannot be distinguished anymore from a random event. 48Ca-induced fusion reactions with actinides are discussed. In 1983 at GSI, Darmstadt and LBL, Berkeley, 48Ca/248Cm-experiments (II) were performed, which are compared to recent 48Ca-experiments at FLNR-Dubna (I) irradiating 244Pu, 242Pu, and 238U. In these experiments production of isotopes of superheavy elements 112 and 114 is claimed. Our analysis of accidental sequences in 48Ca-induced reactions is presented, which is at variance with the published analysis from FLNR-Dubna. We find that the maximum correlation time using continuous beams at today existing separation systems is not in the one-hour regime, but in the few-minute regime. The five spontaneous fission events observed in the FLNR experiments are preceded by signals in the (1–16)-minute range. These times are shown to be longer than the maximum possible correlation times. The preceding signals are decoupled from the spontaneous fission signal and carry no information on the spontaneous fission events observed. Moreover, random probabilities of 0.2 to 0.6 for the signals preceding the fission events indicate that the correlations are of random origin. The evidence to have discovered element 114 in the reported experiments is classified “very weak”.

Experiments to produce isotopes of superheavy elements with atomic numbers 114–116 in 48Ca ion reactions

Experiments have been performed to synthesize isotopes of elements 114–116 in fusion reactions between 48Ca ions and 246, 248Cm, 243Am and 242Pu target nuclei. The detection of reaction products by recording spontaneous fission and α-decay events allowed us to set upper limits of 5 × 10 −35 cm 2 and ≈ 2 × 10 −34 cm 2 on the production cross sections for superheavy elements with 2 h ≦ T sf ≦ 1 y and 2 h ≦ T α ≦ 10 d, respectively.