⁴⁸Ca+²⁴⁹Bk fusion reaction leading to element Z = 117: long-lived α-decaying ²⁷⁰Db and discovery of ²⁶⁶Lr

We are grateful for GSI’s ECR ion source and UNILAC staff, and the Experimental Electronics department for their continuous support of the experiment. This work was financially supported in part by the German BMBF (05P12UMFNE), the Helmholtz association (VH-NG-723), the Australian and Swedish Research Councils, the U.S. Department of Energy by LLNL (DEAC52-07NA27344), the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program at LLNL (11-ERD-011) and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz. This work was co-sponsored by the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy, and supported under U.S. DOE Grant No. DE-AC05- 00OR22725, and at Vanderbilt DOE Grant No. DEFG05-88ER40407, and the UK Science and Technology Funding Council (STFC). J. M. G., K. E. G., and H. N. were supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Nuclear Physics, Low Energy Physics Program, through the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.