Designing a Detector for Superheavy Elements Produced from Multinucleon Transfer Using Monte Carlo Method

It has been proposed that superheavy elements (SHE) in the island of stability may be created through a process called multi-nucleon transfer (MNT). When two elements collide, MNT theorizes that one element will pick up nucleons from the other, thus forming a SHE. This work centers around a simulation of a blackbox detector created to benchmark the viability of detector parameters to identify alpha decay chains from superheavy elements using Monte Carlo simulations and statistical likelihood analysis. In the simulation, an argon filled detector is modeled. The MNT reaction occurs when a gold beam hits a gold target. Inside the target a SHE is produced, which then travels out of the target and into the detector where it is embedded and subsequently undergoes its decay chain. The energy loss both in the target and in the detector medium is calculated to determine where the SHE is stopped. Alpha particles detected from the decays are then paired with their decay chain based on their energy of the alpha particle and the time between each decay event. Once the work is completed, the confidence of detecting SHE produced from MNT using a detector will be discussed.