Properties of heaviest nuclei at the saddle-point configuration

Properties of heaviest nuclei at their saddle point are studied in a multidimensional deformation space. The main attention is given to deformation and the shell correction to energy of the nuclei at this point. The analysis is performed within a macroscopic-microscopic approach. A 10-dimensional deformation space is used. A large number of about 300 even-even heavy and superheavy nuclei with proton number 98 ≤ Z ≤ 126 and neutron number 134 ≤ N ≤ 192 are considered. Detailed results are illustrated for nuclei of the element 120. A large shell correction (up to about 7 MeV) is found for these nuclei. For most of them, the correction is larger than the height of the barrier, itself, as the macroscopic contribution to this height is negative. (author)