Stepping into the Sea of Instability: The New Sub-us Superheavy Nucleus 252Rf

Abstract

We report the discovery of the new isotope ${}^{252}$Rf. With its extremely short half-life of $60_{-30}^{+90}$~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-$K$ isomeric state, for which we measured a half-life of $13_{-3}^{+4}$~$\mu$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 $10^{-14}$~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-$K$ states and inverted fission-stability in the heaviest nuclei.

References in corpus (10)

• Nuclear Ground-State Masses and Deformations
• Origin of the Heaviest Elements: the Rapid Neutron-Capture Process
• Microscopic Theory of Nuclear Fission: A Review
• Future of Nuclear Fission Theory
• Fission half-lives of super-heavy nuclei in a microscopic approach
• Enhanced Stability of Superheavy Nuclei due to High-Spin Isomerism
• Fission properties of superheavy nuclei for r-process calculations
• Decay modes of 250No
• Effects of high order deformation on superheavy high-$K$ isomers
• Fission properties of ${}^{253}$Rf and the stability of neutron-deficient Rf isotopes

Cited by in corpus (1)

• A critical assessment of the current implementations of the Generator Coordinate Method