Some Remarks on the Discovery of Md244

Abstract

In two recent papers by Pore et al. and Khuyagbaatar et al., discovery of the new isotope 244 Md was reported. The decay data, however, are conflicting. While Pore et al. report two isomeric states decaying by α emission with E α ð1Þ ¼ 8.66ð2Þ MeV, T 1=2 ð1Þ ¼ 0.4 þ0.4 −0.1 s and E α ð2Þ ¼ 8.31ð2Þ MeV, T 1=2 ð2Þ ≈ 6 s, Khuyagbaatar et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 142504 (2020).] report only a single transition with a broad energy distribution of E α ¼ ð8.73-8.86Þ MeV and T 1=2 ¼ 0.30 þ0.19 −0.09 s. The data published in Pore et al. are very similar to those published for 245m Md [E α ¼ 8.64ð2Þ, 8.68(2) MeV, T 1=2 ¼ 0.35 þ0.23 −0.16 s [V. Ninov,