Editing Moscovium (section)

===Road to confirmation===
Two heavier isotopes of moscovium, <sup>289</sup>Mc and <sup>290</sup>Mc, were discovered in 2009–2010 as daughters of the [[tennessine]] isotopes <sup>293</sup>Ts and <sup>294</sup>Ts; the isotope <sup>289</sup>Mc was later also synthesized directly and confirmed to have the same properties as found in the tennessine experiments.<ref name="E117" />

In 2011, the [[IUPAC/IUPAP Joint Working Party|Joint Working Party]] of international scientific bodies [[International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry]] (IUPAC) and [[International Union of Pure and Applied Physics]] (IUPAP) evaluated the 2004 and 2007 Dubna experiments, and concluded that they did not meet the criteria for discovery. Another evaluation of more recent experiments took place within the next few years, and a claim to the discovery of moscovium was again put forward by Dubna.<ref name="JWP" /> In August 2013, a team of researchers at [[Lund University]] and at the [[Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung]] (GSI) in [[Darmstadt]], [[Germany]] announced they had repeated the 2004 experiment, confirming Dubna's findings.<ref>{{cite news |agency=Lund University |title=Existence of new element confirmed |date=27 August 2013 |url=http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/existence-of-new-element-confirmed |access-date=10 April 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Spectroscopy of element 115 decay chains (Accepted for publication on Physical Review Letters on 9 August 2013) |url=http://prl.aps.org/accepted/2207dY2bS631e84382e425232df55fb5da302c431 |access-date=2 September 2013 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130827142134/http://prl.aps.org/accepted/2207dY2bS631e84382e425232df55fb5da302c431 |archive-date=August 27, 2013}}</ref> Simultaneously, the 2004 experiment had been repeated at Dubna, now additionally also creating the isotope <sup>289</sup>Mc that could serve as a cross-bombardment for confirming the discovery of the [[tennessine]] isotope <sup>293</sup>Ts in 2010.<ref name="Karol" /> Further confirmation was published by the team at the [[Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory]] in 2015.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1103/PhysRevC.92.021301 |title=Decay spectroscopy of element 115 daughters: <sup>280</sup>Rg→<sup>276</sup>Mt and <sup>276</sup>Mt→Bh |journal=Physical Review C |volume=92 |issue=2 |pages=021301 |bibcode=2015PhRvC..92b1301G |year=2015 |last1=Gates |first1=J. M. |last2=Gregorich |first2=K. E. |last3=Gothe |first3=O. R. |last4=Uribe |first4=E. C. |last5=Pang |first5=G. K. |last6=Bleuel |first6=D. L. |last7=Block |first7=M. |last8=Clark |first8=R. M. |last9=Campbell |first9=C. M. |last10=Crawford |first10=H. L. |last11=Cromaz |first11=M. |last12=Di Nitto |first12=A. |last13=Düllmann |first13=Ch. E. |last14=Esker |first14=N. E. |last15=Fahlander |first15=C. |last16=Fallon |first16=P. |last17=Farjadi |first17=R. M. |last18=Forsberg |first18=U. |last19=Khuyagbaatar |first19=J. |last20=Loveland |first20=W. |last21=MacChiavelli |first21=A. O. |last22=May |first22=E. M. |last23=Mudder |first23=P. R. |last24=Olive |first24=D. T. |last25=Rice |first25=A. C. |last26=Rissanen |first26=J. |last27=Rudolph |first27=D. |last28=Sarmiento |first28=L. G. |last29=Shusterman |first29=J. A. |last30=Stoyer |first30=M. A. |last31=Wiens |first31=A. |last32=Yakushev |first32=A. |last33=Nitsche |first33=H. |display-authors=3 |url=http://portal.research.lu.se/ws/files/3897577/7761361.pdf |doi-access=free}}</ref>

In December 2015, the IUPAC/IUPAP Joint Working Party recognized the element's discovery and assigned the priority to the Dubna-Livermore collaboration of 2009–2010, giving them the right to suggest a permanent name for it.<ref>[http://www.iupac.org/news/news-detail/article/discovery-and-assignment-of-elements-with-atomic-numbers-113-115-117-and-118.html Discovery and Assignment of Elements with Atomic Numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151231074712/http://www.iupac.org/news/news-detail/article/discovery-and-assignment-of-elements-with-atomic-numbers-113-115-117-and-118.html |date=2015-12-31}}. IUPAC (2015-12-30)</ref> While they did not recognise the experiments synthesising <sup>287</sup>Mc and <sup>288</sup>Mc as persuasive due to the lack of a convincing identification of atomic number via cross-reactions, they recognised the <sup>293</sup>Ts experiments as persuasive because its daughter <sup>289</sup>Mc had been produced independently and found to exhibit the same properties.<ref name="Karol">{{cite journal |last1=Karol |first1=Paul J. |last2=Barber |first2=Robert C. |last3=Sherrill |first3=Bradley M. |last4=Vardaci |first4=Emanuele |last5=Yamazaki |first5=Toshimitsu |date=22 December 2015 |title=Discovery of the elements with atomic numbers Z = 113, 115 and 117 (IUPAC Technical Report) |url=https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/pac.2016.88.issue-1-2/pac-2015-0502/pac-2015-0502.pdf |journal=Pure Appl. Chem. |volume=88 |issue=1–2 |pages=139–153 |doi=10.1515/pac-2015-0502 |s2cid=101634372 |access-date=2 April 2016}}</ref>

In May 2016, [[Lund University]] ([[Lund]], [[Scania]], Sweden) and GSI cast some doubt on the syntheses of moscovium and tennessine. The decay chains assigned to <sup>289</sup>Mc, the isotope instrumental in the confirmation of the syntheses of moscovium and tennessine, were found based on a new statistical method to be too different to belong to the same nuclide with a reasonably high probability. The reported <sup>293</sup>Ts decay chains approved as such by the JWP were found to require splitting into individual data sets assigned to different tennessine isotopes. It was also found that the claimed link between the decay chains reported as from <sup>293</sup>Ts and <sup>289</sup>Mc probably did not exist. (On the other hand, the chains from the non-approved isotope <sup>294</sup>Ts were found to be [[wikt:congruent|congruent]].) The multiplicity of states found when nuclides that are not [[even and odd atomic nuclei|even–even]] undergo alpha decay is not unexpected and contributes to the lack of clarity in the cross-reactions. This study criticized the JWP report for overlooking subtleties associated with this issue, and considered it "problematic" that the only argument for the acceptance of the discoveries of moscovium and tennessine was a link they considered to be doubtful.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Forsberg |first1=U. |last2=Rudolph |first2=D. |first3=C. |last3=Fahlander |first4=P. |last4=Golubev |first5=L. G. |last5=Sarmiento |first6=S. |last6=Åberg |first7=M. |last7=Block |first8=Ch. E. |last8=Düllmann |first9=F. P. |last9=Heßberger |first10=J. V. |last10=Kratz |first11=A. |last11=Yakushev |display-authors=3 |date=9 July 2016 |title=A new assessment of the alleged link between element 115 and element 117 decay chains |url=http://portal.research.lu.se/portal/files/9762047/PhysLettB760_293_2016.pdf |journal=Physics Letters B |volume=760 |issue=2016 |pages=293–6 |doi=10.1016/j.physletb.2016.07.008 |access-date=2 April 2016|bibcode=2016PhLB..760..293F |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite conference |url=http://www.epj-conferences.org/articles/epjconf/pdf/2016/26/epjconf-NS160-02003.pdf |title=Congruence of decay chains of elements 113, 115, and 117 |last1=Forsberg |first1=Ulrika |last2=Fahlander |first2=Claes |last3=Rudolph |first3=Dirk |date=2016 |conference=Nobel Symposium NS160 – Chemistry and Physics of Heavy and Superheavy Elements |doi=10.1051/epjconf/201613102003|doi-access=free}}</ref>

On June 8, 2017, two members of the Dubna team published a journal article answering these criticisms, analysing their data on the nuclides <sup>293</sup>Ts and <sup>289</sup>Mc with widely accepted statistical methods, noted that the 2016 studies indicating non-congruence produced problematic results when applied to radioactive decay: they excluded from the 90% confidence interval both average and extreme decay times, and the decay chains that would be excluded from the 90% confidence interval they chose were more probable to be observed than those that would be included. The 2017 reanalysis concluded that the observed decay chains of <sup>293</sup>Ts and <sup>289</sup>Mc were consistent with the assumption that only one nuclide was present at each step of the chain, although it would be desirable to be able to directly measure the mass number of the originating nucleus of each chain as well as the excitation function of the <sup>243</sup>Am+<sup>48</sup>Ca reaction.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Zlokazov |first1=V. B. |last2=Utyonkov |first2=V. K. |date=8 June 2017 |title=Analysis of decay chains of superheavy nuclei produced in the <sup>249</sup>Bk+<sup>48</sup>Ca and <sup>243</sup>Am+<sup>48</sup>Ca reactions |journal=Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics |volume=44 |issue=75107 |pages=075107 |doi=10.1088/1361-6471/aa7293 |bibcode=2017JPhG...44g5107Z |doi-access=free}}</ref>