Structure of the heaviest nuclei

The study of the heaviest nuclei is not only an experimental challenge (due to the very low production cross sections involved), but it is also a theoretical one. Indeed, the combination of large Coulomb fields and high densities of single-particle states makes theoretical calculations difficult and leads to extreme model dependencies, such as for example the localisation of the so-called “island of stability” [1]. Moreover, recent experimental and theoretical studies have shed light on deficiencies of energy density functionals (EDF), which are used to describe nuclear properties across the entire nuclear chart [2], [3]. This suggests that further improvements of the EDF methods are necessary and that new reliable data are required to benchmark and constrain the theoretical models. In this talk, recent results on the structure of transfermium nuclei will be presented and discussed.