Abstract
Four new elements with atomic numbers Z = 113, 115, 117 and 118 have recently been added to the periodic table. The questions pertaining to these superheavy systems are at the forefront of research in nuclear and atomic physics, and chemistry. This Perspective offers a high-level view of the field and outlines future challenges.
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Acknowledgements
Discussions with Y. Oganessian and P. Schwerdtfeger, and useful comments from D. Lee are gratefully appreciated. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy under award numbers DOE-DE-NA0002847 (NNSA, the Stewardship Science Academic Alliances programme), DE-SC0013365 (Office of Science) and DE-SC0018083 (Office of Science, NUCLEI SciDAC-4 collaboration).
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Nazarewicz, W. The limits of nuclear mass and charge. Nature Phys 14, 537–541 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-018-0163-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-018-0163-3
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