Attempt to confirm superheavy element production in the Ca48+U238 reaction

An attempt to confirm production of superheavy elements in the reaction of Ca48 beams with actinide targets has been performed using the U238(Ca48,3n)283112 reaction. Two Ca48 projectile energies were used that spanned the energy range where the largest cross sections have been reported for this reaction. No spontaneous fission events were observed. No α decay chains consistent with either reported or theoretically predicted element 112 decay properties were observed. The cross-section limits reached are significantly smaller than the recently reported cross sections.