SYNTHESIS OF NEUTRON ENRICHED HEAVY AND SUPERHEAVY NUCLEI

Applicability of different nuclear reactions (fusion of stable and radioactive nuclei, multi-nucleon transfers and neutron capture) for the production of new neutron enriched heavy nuclei is discussed in the paper. For the first time, a narrow pathway is found to the middle of the island of stability owing to possible beta(+)-decay of SH isotopes which can be formed in ordinary fusion reactions of stable nuclei. Neutron capture reactions can be also used for the production of the long-living neutron rich SH nuclei. Strong neutron fluxes might be provided by pulsed nuclear reactors and by multiple nuclear explosions in laboratory conditions and by supernova explosions in nature. Low-energy multinucleon transfer reactions with actinide beams and targets are of special interest for synthesis of new neutron enriched transfermium nuclei and not-yet-known nuclei around the closed neutron shell N = 126 having largest impact on astrophysical r process. The estimated cross sections for the production of these nuclei look very promising to plan such experiments at available accelerators. Several new test experiments of such kind are proposed to perform including those in which a role of the shell effects in low-energy reaction dynamics could be clarify much better.