Title: The fission-landscape of superheavy nuclei

Speaker: Prof. Jadauyagbambaa Khatar, GSI, Germany

Time: 15:00, Oct. 28 (Wednesday), 2026

Place: Meeting Room on the 6th Floor, Technical Building, Lanzhou Nanchang Road Campus

Abstract:

Superheavy nuclei (SHN), with proton numbers extending potentially up to (Z = 126), remain at the forefront of modern nuclear physics. One of the major goals of more than six decades of research has been to explore the island of stability in a sea of fission instability, predicted to locate in the region of Z = 114 − 126 and N = 184.

To date, SHN with Z up to 118 and neutron numbers up to N = 177 have been artificially synthesized. They were produced in heavy-ion induced fusion reactions with atom-at-a-time rates and were identified predominantly by their α-particle emission and rarely by fission. Corresponding experimental data, e.g., partial half-lives of these radioactive decays, confirm the concept of the island of stability.

Despite these achievements, many fundamental properties of SHN remain poorly understood, particularly their nuclear structure and its influence on competing radioactive decay modes. A better understanding of these properties, especially their fission characteristics, is essential for mapping the stability landscape of the heaviest nuclei and understanding the role of shell effects in extending their existence.

Intensive programs aimed at exploring the fission-landscape and the shell structure of SHN are ongoing worldwide, including the research conducted at the gas-filled recoil separator TASCA, GSI, Germany.

The speaker will discuss the present status and recent results on exploring the fission-landscape of SHN.