1-4 A Statistical Approach to Describe Highly Excited Heavy and Superheavy Nuclei

The synthesis of very heavy (superheavy) nuclei is a very important subject in nuclear physics motivated by reaching the island of stability predicted theoretically, which has obtained much progress in experiments with fusionevaporation reaction mechanism. The existence of superheavy nucleus (SHN) (Z  106) is due to a strong shell effect against the large Coulomb repulsion. However, the shell effect will be reduced by the increasing excitation energy of the formed compound nucleus. The fusion-evaporation reaction to form superheavy compound nucleus can be understood as three stages in accordance with the evolution of two heavy colliding nuclei, namely the capture process of the colliding system to overcome Coulomb barrier, the formation of the compound nucleus to pass over inner fusion barrier, as well as the de-excitation of the thermal compound nucleus against fission[1]. The survival probability in the last stage is particularly important in the evaluation of production cross sections of heavy and superheavy nuclei.