Stepping into the Sea of Instability: The New Sub-us Superheavy Nucleus 252Rf
Nuclear Experiment
2025-01-16 v1
Abstract
We report the discovery of the new isotope Rf. With its extremely short half-life of ~ns, it expands the range of half-lives of the known superheavy nuclei by about two orders of magnitude. This nucleus was synthesized in its high- isomeric state, for which we measured a half-life of ~s. Our results confirm a smooth onset of decreasing ground-state spontaneous fission half-lives in the neutron-deficient Rf isotopes towards the isotopic border of ~s, which is the time needed to form an atomic shell. Our findings set a new benchmark for further exploration of phenomena associated with high- states and inverted fission-stability in the heaviest nuclei.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2501.08955,
title = {Stepping into the Sea of Instability: The New Sub-us Superheavy Nucleus 252Rf},
author = {J. Khuyagbaatar and P. Mosat and J. Ballof and R. A. Cantemir and Ch. E. Düllmann and K. Hermainski and F. P. Heßberger and E. Jäger and B. Kindler and J. Krier and N. Kurz and S. Löchner and B. Lommel and B. Schausten and Y. Wei and P. Wieczorek and A. Yakushev},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.08955},
year = {2025}
}