Final Report Summary - SHESTRUCT (Understanding the structure and stability of heavy and superheavy elements)
Atoms with nuclei which contain more than around 100 protons should not exist, as the repulsive force between the protons should act to rip the nucleus apart. However, the nucleus is an object governed by quantum behavior and quantum effects lead to the possibility for nuclei with an even larger number of protons to exist. To date, nuclei with up to 118 protons have been produced in the laboratory. The heaviest nuclei (with the largest number of protons) are very difficult to produce, in turn making it difficult to study the important quantum effects in detail. The main goal of the SHESTRUCT project was to gain detailed information on nuclei with as high a proton number as possible. In order to do this, a novel spectrometer known as SAGE was constructed and exploited. The project resulted in a significant advance in the field, allowing the study of nuclei which it was previously not possible to study, such as 256Rf with 104 protons and 152 neutrons. The results of the experiments allowed advances to be made in the nuclear structure theories used to describe the quantum effects that govern the behavior of these nuclei.