15 research outputs found
Have Superheavy Elements been Produced in Nature?
We discuss the possibility whether superheavy elements can be produced in
Nature by the astrophysical rapid neutron capture process. To this end we have
performed fully dynamical network r-process calculations assuming an
environment with neutron-to-seed ratio large enough to produce superheavy
nuclei. Our calculations include two sets of nuclear masses and fission
barriers and include all possible fission channels and the associated fission
yield distributions. Our calculations produce superheavy nuclei with A ~ 300
that however decay on timescales of days.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figure