Systematics of production cross sections and predictions for the synthesis of new superheavy elements

A systematic analysis of hot fusion reactions with a comparison to experimental cross sections related to the synthesis of superheavy elements is carried out using the HIVAP code. A single parameter set is found which when implemented in the HIVAP computer code, describes experimental production cross sections for reactions using a Ca-48 beam on actinide targets reasonably well. A simple scaling based on the mass asymmetry of the projectile-target system is introduced for projectiles lighter than Ca-48. It is seen that only three parameters scaled by a constant factor are required to describe cross-section data obtained using lighter projectiles. The projectile dependence on the production cross section is also studied. From these investigations, new reactions with Ca-48 incident on various actinide targets are proposed for the production of unknown heavier isotopes of Z = 116 and 118 and for the synthesis of new superheavy elements with Z = 119 and 120.