Heavy and superheavy nuclei

The new elements 110, 111 and 112 were synthesized and unambiguously identified in experiments at SHIP. Due to strong shell effects the dominant decay mode is not fission, but emission of alpha particles. Theoretical investigations predict that maximum shell effects should exist in nuclei near proton number 114 and neutron number 184. Our measurements give hope that isotopes of element 114 close to the island of spherical Superheavy Elements could be produced by fusion reactions using ²⁰⁸Pb as target. Systematic studies of the reaction cross-sections indicate that transfer of nucleons is the important process to initiate the fusion.