Related papers: A Note on the Prehistory of Superheavy Elements
Significant progress has been made over the past decades towards unveiling the sources of the most energetic particles in nature, the ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). Despite these advancements, the exact astrophysical sites capable…
Dark matter is a fundamental constituent of the universe, which is needed to explain a wide variety of astrophysical and cosmological observations. Although the existence of dark matter was first postulated nearly a century ago and its…
The highest energy cosmic rays observed possess macroscopic energies and their origin is likely to be associated with the most energetic processes in the Universe. Their existence triggered a flurry of theoretical explanations ranging from…
Ultra-peripheral collisions of relativistic heavy ions involve long-ranged electromagnetic interactions at impact parameters too large for hadronic interactions to occur. The nuclear charges are large; with the coherent enhancement, the…
Answering well-known fundamental questions is usually regarded as the major goal of science. Discovery of other unknown and fundamental questions is, however, even more important. Recognition that "we didn't know anything" is the basic…
Extensive spectroscopic studies of stars with and without planets have concluded that stars hosting planets are significantly more metal-rich than those without planets. More subtle trends of different chemical elements begin to appear as…
It is well known that stars orbited by giant planets have higher abundances of heavy elements when compared with average field dwarfs. A number of studies have also addressed the possibility that light element abundances are different in…
Spectra of unevolved metal-poor halo stars uniquely reflect the elemental abundances incorporated during the earliest Galactic epoch. Their heavy-element content is well understood as the products of neutron capture on iron-peak elements.…
Recently acquired evidence shows that extrasolar asteroids exhibit over a factor of 100 variation in the iron to aluminum abundance ratio. This large range likely is a consequence of igneous differentiation that resulted from heating…
Reports published in the last 25 years on the synthesis of carbon-based materials significantly superior to diamond in hardness and elastic properties have been critically examined, and three groups of recently appearing myths have been…
Superionic states are phases of matters that can simultaneously exhibit some of the properties of a fluid and of a solid. Superionic states of ice, H$_{3}$O, He-H$_{2}$O or He-NH$_{3}$ compounds have been reported in previous works.…
Currently, 31 actinium, 31 thorium, 28 protactinium, and 23 uranium isotopes have so far been observed; the discovery of these isotopes is discussed. For each isotope a brief summary of the first refereed publication, including the…
The field of ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions is today a flourishing activity both on the experimental and on the theoretical side. Although the theoretical justifications to study these collisions was given already more than three…
Among the light elements created in the Big Bang, deuterium is one of the most difficult to detect but is also the one whose abundance depends most sensitively on the density of baryons. Thus, although we still have only a few positive…
The chemical composition of stars with extremely low metal contents (taking ``metals'' to mean all elements other than hydrogen and helium) provides us with information on the masses of the stars that produced the first metals. Such a…
The universe would have been completely dark between the epoch of recombination and the development of the first non-linear structure. But at redshifts beyond 5 -- perhaps even beyond 20 -- stars formed within `subgalaxies' and created the…
Dark matter, proposed decades ago as a speculative component of the universe, is now known to be the vital ingredient in the cosmos, eight times more abundant than ordinary matter, one quarter of the total energy density and the component…
I report the discovery of jacquetium ($_0$Jq), the first naturally occurring element found since more than 80 years. It is volumically the most important element of the local Universe.
The last few years have been witness to a proliferation of new results concerning heavy exotic hadrons. Experimentally, many new signals have been discovered that could be pointing towards the existence of tetraquarks, pentaquarks, and…
Chemistry has arrived on the shore of the Island of Stability with the first chemical investigation of the superheavy elements Cn, 113, and 114. The results of three experimental series leading to first measured thermodynamic data and…