Bridging the nuclear structure gap between stable and super heavy nuclei Original Research Article

Due to recent advances in detection techniques, excited states in several trans-fermium nuclei were studied in many laboratories worldwide, shedding light on the evolution of nuclear structure between stable nuclei and the predicted island of stability centered around spherical magic numbers. In particular, studies of K-isomers around the Z=100 and N=152 deformed shell closures extended information on the energies of Nilsson orbitals at the Fermi surface. Some of these orbitals originate from spherical states, which are relevant to the magic gaps in super-heavy nuclei. The single-particle energies can be used to test various theoretical predictions and aid in extrapolations towards heavier systems. So far, the Woods-Saxon potential reproduces the data best, while self-consistent approaches miss some of the observed features, indicating a need to modify the underlying effective nucleon-nucleon interactions.