On the Production of Superheavy Elements

How the Island behind the Swamp was drained and bridged by the discovery of Deformed Superheavy Elements is reported in a reminiscent introduction. What we know experimentally and theoretically on the nuclear structure of SHE is reported in the first section. The making of the elements with an analysis of production cross sections and its macroscopic limitation to Z = 112 + ε is presented in the second section. The break-down of fusion cross sections in the ''Coulomb Falls'' within a range of about 10 elements is introduced as the universal limiting phenomenon. How the nuclear structure of the collision partners modifies the on-set of this limitation is presented in Section 3. Reactions induced by deformed nuclei are pushed by side collisions to higher excitation energies (4n- and 5n-channels), whereas reactions driven by the cluster like, closed-shell nuclei, 208 Pb 126 and 138 Ba 82 , are kept at low excitation energies (1n - and 2n -channels). The on-set of production limitation for deformed collision partners is moved to smaller effective fissilities x=0.68 ≤ 0.72, whereas for spherical clusters the on-set is delayed x = 0.76 ≥ 0.72 and x = 0.79 ≥ 0.72 for 138Ba and 208Pb, respectively. A short outlook, what should be done in the future, ends the article. (author)