Editing Nihonium (section)

=== Approval of discoveries ===
In December 2015, the conclusions of a new JWP report were published by IUPAC in a press release, in which element 113 was awarded to Riken; elements 115, 117, and 118 were awarded to the collaborations involving the JINR.<ref name="huffingtonpost" /> A joint 2016 announcement by IUPAC and IUPAP had been scheduled to coincide with the publication of the JWP reports, but IUPAC alone decided on an early release because the news of Riken being awarded credit for element 113 had been leaked to Japanese newspapers.<ref name="McKellar" /> For the first time in history, a team of Asian physicists would name a new element.<ref name="huffingtonpost">{{cite web |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/26/element-113-created-synthetically-japan_n_1916253.html |title=Element 113: Ununtrium Reportedly Synthesised In Japan |website=Huffington Post |date=September 2012 |access-date=22 April 2013}}</ref> The JINR considered the awarding of element 113 to Riken unexpected, citing their own 2003 production of elements 115 and 113, and pointing to the precedents of elements [[lawrencium|103]], [[rutherfordium|104]], and [[dubnium|105]] where IUPAC had awarded joint credit to the JINR and LBNL. They stated that they respected IUPAC's decision, but reserved determination of their position for the official publication of the JWP reports.<ref name="reaction">{{cite web |url=http://www.jinr.ru/posts/discovery-of-the-new-chemical-elements-with-numbers-113-115-117-and-118-2/ |title=Discovery of the new chemical elements with numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118 |date=6 January 2016 |publisher=[[Joint Institute for Nuclear Research]] |access-date=14 January 2018}}</ref>

The full JWP reports were published on 21 January 2016. The JWP recognised the discovery of element 113, assigning priority to Riken. They noted that while the individual decay energies of each nuclide in the decay chain of <sup>278</sup>113 were inconsistent, their sum was now confirmed to be consistent, strongly suggesting that the initial and final states in <sup>278</sup>113 and its daughter <sup>262</sup>Db were the same for all three events. The decay of <sup>262</sup>Db to <sup>258</sup>Lr and <sup>254</sup>Md was previously known, firmly anchoring the decay chain of <sup>278</sup>113 to known regions of the chart of nuclides. The JWP considered that the JINR–LLNL collaborations of 2004 and 2007, producing element 113 as the daughter of element 115, did not meet the discovery criteria as they had not convincingly determined the atomic numbers of their nuclides through cross-bombardments, which were considered necessary since their decay chains were not anchored to previously known nuclides. They also considered that the previous JWP's concerns over their chemical identification of the dubnium daughter had not been adequately addressed. The JWP recognised the JINR–LLNL–ORNL–Vanderbilt collaboration of 2010 as having discovered elements 117 and 115, and accepted that element 113 had been produced as their daughter, but did not give this work shared credit.<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) |journal=Pure Appl. Chem. |volume=88 |issue=1–2 |pages=139–153 |doi=10.1515/pac-2015-0502|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Morimoto2016" /><ref name="namingiupac">{{cite web |url=http://www.iupac.org/news/news-detail/article/discovery-and-assignment-of-elements-with-atomic-numbers-113-115-117-and-118.html |title=Discovery and Assignment of Elements with Atomic Numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118. |publisher=IUPAC |date=30 December 2015 |access-date=8 September 2018 |archive-date=31 December 2015 |archive-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 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

After the publication of the JWP reports, Sergey Dimitriev, the lab director of the Flerov lab at the JINR where the discoveries were made, remarked that he was happy with IUPAC's decision, mentioning the time Riken spent on their experiment and their good relations with Morita, who had learnt the basics of synthesising superheavy elements at the JINR.<ref name="Chapman">{{cite news |url=https://www.chemistryworld.com/what-it-takes-to-make-a-new-element/1017677.article |title=What it takes to make a new element |last=Chapman |first=Kit |date=30 November 2016 |magazine=Chemistry World |publisher=Royal Society of Chemistry |access-date=3 December 2016}}</ref><ref name="reaction" />

The sum argument advanced by the JWP in the approval of the discovery of element 113 was later criticised in a May 2016 study from Lund University and the GSI, as it is only valid if no [[gamma decay]] or [[internal conversion]] takes place along the decay chain, which is not likely for odd nuclei, and the uncertainty of the alpha decay energies measured in the <sup>278</sup>113 decay chain was not small enough to rule out this possibility. If this is the case, similarity in lifetimes of intermediate daughters becomes a meaningless argument, as different isomers of the same nuclide can have different half-lives: for example, the ground state of <sup>180</sup>Ta has a half-life of hours, but an excited state [[isotopes of tantalum|<sup>180m</sup>Ta]] has never been observed to decay. This study found reason to doubt and criticise the IUPAC approval of the discoveries of elements 115 and 117, but the data from Riken for element 113 was found to be congruent, and the data from the JINR team for elements 115 and 113 to probably be so, thus endorsing the IUPAC approval of the discovery of element 113.<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 |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=293–296 |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> Two members of the JINR team published a journal article rebutting these criticisms against the congruence of their data on elements 113, 115, and 117 in June 2017.<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>