Potential energy surfaces of superheavy nuclei

We investigate the structure of the potential energy surfaces of the superheavy nuclei 158258Fm100, 156264Hs108, 166278112, 184298114, and 172292120 within the framework of self-consistent nuclear models, i.e., the Skyrme-Hartree-Fock approach and the relativistic mean-field model. We compare results obtained with one representative parametrization of each model which is successful in describing superheavy nuclei. We find systematic changes as compared to the potential energy surfaces of heavy nuclei in the uranium region: there is no sufficiently stable fission isomer any more, the importance of triaxial configurations to lower the first barrier fades away, and asymmetric fission paths compete down to rather small deformation. Comparing the two models, it turns out that the relativistic mean-field model gives generally smaller fission barriers. copyright 1998 The American Physical Society