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Young school scientists may be familiarising themselves with the famous periodic table of elements, but a new, extremely rare element will soon be added to the list, and it is so new that it doesn’t even have an official name yet.

Furthermore, the technique developed for this experiment can now be used to directly ‘fingerprint’ and identify new such rare elements in the future. This research, involving a team of nuclear physicists from the University of Liverpool, has been published in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters.

The international team of researchers, led by Sweden’s Lund University, and including nuclear physicists from the University of Liverpool who were funded by STFC, have confirmed the existence of an extremely rare ‘superheavy’ element that was first proposed by Russian researchers in 2004, but had not been proven. The experiment was conducted at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research facility in Germany, where scientists have previously discovered six other new elements.

Any element beyond atomic number 104 is known as ‘superheavy’. Superheavy elements do not normally occur naturally on earth, often existing only on the surface of exploding stars, and must therefore be produced at an accelerator laboratory. They also decay very rapidly, in fact, element 115 exists for only a fraction of a second before it decays.

During the experiment, a layer of the rare element americium was deposited on a thin foil, and bombarded with calcium ions. Using a brand new, highly specialised and unique detector system built by the Universities of Lund and Liverpool, the team of researchers were able to measure photons (light particles) in relation to the new element's decay process. The photon energies measured corresponded to those expected for X-rays from these products, meaning that, for the first time it is possible to reliably obtain a ‘fingerprint’ of an individual given element.

"This research is one of the most important experiments in this field in recent years. Nuclear physicists look to create and study the very heaviest elements predicted to exist, and now, for the first time, we can identify the fingerprints of even the heaviest of elements known to man”, said Professor Rodi Herzberg from the University of Liverpool. "The result gives high confidence to previous research and lays the basis for future experiments of this kind in the detection of new elements."

Professor John Simpson, Head of STFC’s Nuclear Physics Group, said:

“This research shows the importance of UK nuclear physicists playing leading roles in both the science programme and development of advanced detection systems at world leading laboratories such as GSI. It is really exciting to see technology developed by UK Universities, who are supported by STFC, contribute to this research that could answer some of the most fundamental questions about our universe. Furthermore, the instruments and techniques developed through this kind of research can go on to be applied to a wide range of other areas including energy generation and the diagnosis and treatment of cancers.”

STFC also supports the UK’s associate member status at FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research), currently under construction next to GSI. Once complete, it will become the world’s largest nuclear physics research facility.

Notes to Editors

This research paper has been published as an advance online publication - "Spectroscopy of Element 115 Decay Chains" - D. Rudolph et al, Paper reference: doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.112502. The paper and synopsis are available online.

Images available

The Gamma detection setup TASISpec at GSI used to fingerprint element 115.

Contact details

Wendy Ellison
STFC Press Officer
Tel: 01925 603232
Mob: 07919 548012

STFC

The Science and Technology Facilities Council is keeping the UK at the forefront of international science and tackling some of the most significant challenges facing society such as meeting our future energy needs, monitoring and understanding climate change, and global security.

The Council has a broad science portfolio and works with the academic and industrial communities to share its expertise in materials science, space and ground-based astronomy technologies, laser science, microelectronics, wafer scale manufacturing, particle and nuclear physics, alternative energy production, radio communications and radar.

STFC operates or hosts world class experimental facilities including in the UK the ISIS pulsed neutron source, the Central Laser Facility, and LOFAR, and is also the majority shareholder in Diamond Light Source Ltd.

It enables UK researchers to access leading international science facilities by funding membership of international bodies including European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), the Institut Laue Langevin (ILL), European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). STFC is one of seven publicly-funded research councils.

It is an independent, non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

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