Editing Moscovium (section)

===Nuclear stability and isotopes===
{{Main|Isotopes of moscovium}}
[[File:Island of Stability derived from Zagrebaev.svg|right|thumb|upright=1.8|The expected location of the island of stability. The dotted line is the line of [[beta stability]].]]
Moscovium is expected to be within an [[island of stability]] centered on [[copernicium]] (element 112) and [[flerovium]] (element 114).<ref name="Zagrebaev">{{cite conference |last1=Zagrebaev |first1=Valeriy |last2=Karpov |first2=Alexander |last3=Greiner |first3=Walter |date=2013 |title=Future of superheavy element research: Which nuclei could be synthesized within the next few years? |publisher=IOP Science |book-title=Journal of Physics: Conference Series |volume=420 |pages=1–15 |url=http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/420/1/012001/pdf/1742-6596_420_1_012001.pdf |access-date=20 August 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Van Nostrand's scientific encyclopedia|first1=Glenn D. |last1= Considine |first2=Peter H. |last2= Kulik|publisher=Wiley-Interscience|date=2002|edition=9th|isbn=978-0-471-33230-5|oclc=223349096}}</ref> Due to the expected high fission barriers, any nucleus within this [[island of stability]] exclusively decays by alpha decay and perhaps some electron capture and [[beta decay]].{{Fricke1975|ref}} Although the known isotopes of moscovium do not actually have enough neutrons to be on the island of stability, they can be seen to approach the island as in general, the heavier isotopes are the longer-lived ones.<ref name="E117"/><ref name="SHEsummary" /><ref name="E115" />

The hypothetical isotope <sup>291</sup>Mc is an especially interesting case as it has only one neutron more than the heaviest known moscovium isotope, <sup>290</sup>Mc. It could plausibly be synthesized as the daughter of <sup>295</sup>Ts, which in turn could be made from the reaction {{nowrap|<sup>249</sup>Bk(<sup>48</sup>Ca,2n)<sup>295</sup>Ts}}.<ref name="Zagrebaev" /> Calculations show that it may have a significant [[electron capture]] or [[positron emission]] decay mode in addition to alpha decay and also have a relatively long half-life of several seconds. This would produce <sup>291</sup>[[flerovium|Fl]], <sup>291</sup>Nh, and finally <sup>291</sup>[[copernicium|Cn]] which is expected to be in the middle of the island of stability and have a half-life of about 1200&nbsp;years, affording the most likely hope of reaching the middle of the island using current technology. Possible drawbacks are that the cross section of the production reaction of <sup>295</sup>Ts is expected to be low and the decay properties of superheavy nuclei this close to the line of [[beta stability]] are largely unexplored.<ref name="Zagrebaev" /> The heavy isotopes from <sup>291</sup>Mc to <sup>294</sup>Mc might also be produced using charged-particle evaporation, in the <sup>245</sup>Cm(<sup>48</sup>Ca,p''x''n) and <sup>248</sup>Cm(<sup>48</sup>Ca,p''x''n) reactions.<ref name=Yerevan2023PPT/><ref name=pxn/>

The light isotopes <sup>284</sup>Mc, <sup>285</sup>Mc, and <sup>286</sup>Mc could be made from the <sup>241</sup>Am+<sup>48</sup>Ca reaction. They would undergo a chain of alpha decays, ending at transactinide isotopes too light to be made by hot fusion and too heavy to be made by cold fusion.<ref name=Zagrebaev/> The isotope <sup>286</sup>Mc was found in 2021 at Dubna, in the {{nowrap|<sup>243</sup>Am(<sup>48</sup>Ca,5n)<sup>286</sup>Mc}} reaction: it decays into the already-known <sup>282</sup>Nh and its daughters.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://flerovlab.jinr.ru/update-on-the-experiments-at-the-she-factory/|title=Update on the experiments at the SHE Factory |publisher=Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions |date=27 January 2022 |first=N. |last=Kovrizhnykh |access-date=28 February 2022}}</ref> The yet lighter <sup>282</sup>Mc and <sup>283</sup>Mc could be made from <sup>243</sup>Am+<sup>44</sup>Ca, but the cross-section would likely be lower.<ref name=Zagrebaev/>

Other possibilities to synthesize nuclei on the island of stability include quasifission (partial fusion followed by fission) of a massive nucleus.<ref name="ZG" /> Such nuclei tend to fission, expelling doubly [[Magic number (physics)|magic]] or nearly doubly magic fragments such as [[calcium-40]], [[tin-132]], [[lead-208]], or [[bismuth-209]].<ref name="jinr20006">{{cite web|title=JINR Annual Reports 2000–2006|url=http://www1.jinr.ru/Reports/Reports_eng_arh.html|publisher=[[Joint Institute for Nuclear Research|JINR]]|access-date=2013-08-27}}</ref> It has been shown that the multi-nucleon transfer reactions in collisions of actinide nuclei (such as [[uranium]] and [[curium]]) might be used to synthesize the neutron-rich superheavy nuclei located at the [[island of stability]],<ref name="ZG">{{cite journal|last1=Zagrebaev |first1=V.|last2=Greiner |first2=W.|date=2008|title=Synthesis of superheavy nuclei: A search for new production reactions|journal=[[Physical Review C]]|volume=78 |issue=3 |page=034610|arxiv=0807.2537|bibcode=2008PhRvC..78c4610Z|doi=10.1103/PhysRevC.78.034610}}</ref> although formation of the lighter elements [[nobelium]] or [[seaborgium]] is more favored.<ref name="Zagrebaev" /> One last possibility to synthesize isotopes near the island is to use controlled [[nuclear explosion]]s to create a [[neutron flux]] high enough to bypass the gaps of instability at <sup>258–260</sup>[[fermium|Fm]] and at [[mass number]] 275 (atomic numbers [[rutherfordium|104]] to [[hassium|108]]), mimicking the [[r-process]] in which the [[actinide]]s were first produced in nature and the gap of instability around [[radon]] bypassed.<ref name="Zagrebaev" /> Some such isotopes (especially <sup>291</sup>Cn and <sup>293</sup>Cn) may even have been synthesized in nature, but would have decayed away far too quickly (with half-lives of only thousands of years) and be produced in far too small quantities (about 10<sup>−12</sup> the abundance of [[lead]]) to be detectable as [[primordial nuclide]]s today outside [[cosmic ray]]s.<ref name="Zagrebaev" />