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In nuclear physics, the island of stability is a predicted set of isotopes of superheavy elements that may have considerably longer half-lives than known isotopes of these elements. It is predicted to appear as an "island" in the chart of nuclides , separated from known stable and long-lived primordial radionuclides .
Unbihexium has attracted attention among nuclear physicists, especially in early predictions targeting properties of superheavy elements, for 126 may be a magic number of protons near the center of an island of stability, leading to longer half-lives, especially for 310 Ubh or 354 Ubh which may also have magic numbers of neutrons.
Livermorium is expected to be near an island of stability centered on copernicium (element 112) and flerovium (element 114). [85] [86] Due to the expected high fission barriers, any nucleus within this island of stability exclusively decays by alpha decay and perhaps some electron capture and beta decay. [4]
It is predicted that the heavy isotopes 291 Cn and 293 Cn may have half-lives longer than a few decades, for they are predicted to lie near the center of the theoretical island of stability, and may have been produced in the r-process and be detectable in cosmic rays, though they would be about 10 −12 times as abundant as lead. [80]
Scientists have long searched for long-lived heavy isotopes outside of the valley of stability, [6] [7] [8] hypothesized by Glenn T. Seaborg in the late 1960s. [9] [10] These relatively stable nuclides are expected to have particular configurations of "magic" atomic and neutron numbers, and form a so-called island of stability.
Later work suggests the islands of stability around hassium and flerovium occur because these nuclei are respectively deformed and oblate, which make them resistant to spontaneous fission, and that the true island of stability for spherical nuclei occurs at around unbibium-306 (122 protons, 184 neutrons).
A chart of nuclide stability as used by the Dubna team in 2010. Characterized isotopes are shown with borders. Beyond element 118 (oganesson, the last known element), the line of known nuclides is expected to rapidly enter a region of instability. The elliptical region encloses the predicted location of the island of stability. [54]
Superheavy elements, also known as transactinide elements, transactinides, or super-heavy elements, or superheavies for short, are the chemical elements with atomic number greater than 104. [1] The superheavy elements are those beyond the actinides in the periodic table; the last actinide is lawrencium (atomic number 103).