Mass spectrometric searches for superheavy elements in terrestrial matter

Recent searches for traces of long-lived superheavy elements (SHEs) in terrestrial materials by mass spectrometric means are reviewed. Positive evidence for long-lived neutron-deficient Th isotopes in Th and Rg isotopes in Au, and a possible A=292, Z∼122 nuclide in Th was reported from experiments with Inductively Coupled Plasma Sector Field Mass Spectrometry (ICP-SF-MS). These findings were not confirmed with Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS), with abundance limits lower by several orders of magnitude. In addition, the extensive AMS searches for 42 SHE nuclides (A=288-310) around the much discussed “island of stability” (Z=114, N=184) in natural Pt, Au, Pb, Bi materials are reviewed. Due to the flatness of the mass distribution and the relatively large bandwidth of the mass acceptance in AMS searches, an effectively much larger number of SHE nuclides was scanned in the respective materials. No positive evidence for the existence of long-lived SHEs (t1/2>108 yr) with abundance limits of 10−12 to 10−16 was found.