Fission in the landscape of heaviest elements: Some recent examples

Abstract

The fission process still remains a main factor that determines the stability of the atomic nucleus of heaviest elements. Fission half-lives vary over a wide range, 10-19 -1024 s. Present experimental techniques for the synthesis of the superheavy elements that usually measure a-decay chains are sensitive only in a limited range of half-lives, often 10-5 -103 s. In the past years, measurement techniques for very short-lived and very longlived nuclei were significantly improved at the gas-filled recoil separator TASCA at GSI Darmstadt. Recently, several experimental studies of fissionrelated phenomena have successfully been performed. In this paper, results on 254-256Rf and 266Lr are presented and corresponding factors for retarding the fission process are discussed. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences.