Abstract
The heaviest elements only exist because of the stabilizing influence of the nuclear shell single-particle structure. This makes them an ideal laboratory to study that structure away from the influence of the bulk properties of nuclear matter. On the other hand, this makes them difficult to produce and study. Over the last decades, a lot of experimental progress has been made, and more recently it has been possible to bring modern laser spectroscopic methods and nuclear spectroscopy approaches to bear. The relevant physics of the heaviest elements will be briefly introduced, and the various experimental techniques used to study them will be described in detail.
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Block, M., Raeder, S., Herzberg, RD. (2023). Heaviest Elements: Decay and Laser Spectroscopy. In: Tanihata, I., Toki, H., Kajino, T. (eds) Handbook of Nuclear Physics . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6345-2_45
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