Fusion Reaction in the Superheavy Nuclear Region(Science around Superheavy Elements)

Abstract

Fusion of massive nuclei used for the synthesis of superheavy elements (SHE) is often hindered seriously. Because the compound nucleus is very fissile, its survival probability to reach a residual nucleus without fission is also small. These are biggest difficulties we have in the experimental study of SHE. In this note, we first review the fusion hindrance in terms of the recent two-step model including energy dissipation and discuss a decisive role of energy fluctuation in the fusion mechanism. We secondly point out that the compound nucleus can often survive better through a decay mode including α-particle emission in its deexcitation process. We finally discuss some possible projectile and target combinations to study nuclei in the N=184 region.