Effect of Deformation on the Survival of Radon Compound Nuclei

With the search for new superheavy elements intensifying, efforts have been made to determine the most important factors for the survival of the compound nucleus in order to maximize the odds of success. Recently, the effect of quadrupole deformation on the level density for neutron decay has been investigated, as it should increase the neutron decay width relative to the fission width.^[1] Conversely, deexcitation by fission, rather than neutron emission, results in a lower-than-expected cross section for fusion-evaporation reactions to form heavy spherical nuclei.^[2] In an effort to better understand these effects, the excitation functions for fusion-evaporation reactions of ⁴⁸Ti projectiles with ^{160,158,157,156}Gd targets were systematically measured. This series spans a large range of deformations, at varied excitation energies, and allows for exploration into the effects of deformation on the survival of the compound nucleus. Future work seeks to expand upon these results by performing a similar set of measurements with ⁴⁸Ti on a series of dysprosium targets. This talk will present the most recent results.