In-beam, K-isomer, $\gamma$-decay and spontaneous fission spectroscopy of trans-fermium nuclei provide a stringent test of nuclear models which are used to describe the heaviest known nuclei. To extend these studies to heavier, more proton-rich, odd-A, odd-odd nuclei, the Argonne Gas-filled Fragment Analyzer (AGFA) was constructed. During the talk, recent decay and isomer spectroscopy...
The search for new elements has netted us six additions to the periodic table within the last decade and more than 50 isotopes of these elements. All of these new superheavy elements (SHE) must be formed one-atom-at-a-time in complete-fusion evaporation reaction. Once formed, the atoms typically exist for just seconds or less before they decay into other elements. Since discovering these...
In recent years the investigation of atomic and nuclear properties of very heavy and super heavy elements at GSI has been extended in recent years. New technological and methodological developments enabled laser spectroscopy in the heavy actinides and high-precision mass measurements up to the superheavy elements dubnium. Thanks to the supreme mass resolving power of the Penning-trap setup...
A systematic Actinide Contraction of the ionic radius is generally observed for all elements belonging to the actinide series. In the case of a trivalent actinide ion, filling the inner 5f orbitals with one electron in an atomic numbering order in the electron configuration of [Rn]5fn (n = 0 - 14) results in an ion radius contraction of approximately 1.6%. Understanding such a systematic...
All elements up to oganesson (element 118) have been discovered and officially accepted, filling up the 7th period of the periodic table of chemical elements. Experimental chemical investigations of the heaviest elements have also made tremendous progress in the last decades. Currently, the focus is on copernicium (Cn, element 112), nihonium (Nh, element 113), flerovium (Fl, element 114), and...
