Amnon Marinov

Amnon Marinov (; 1930 – 2011) was an Israeli physicist. He undertook research into nuclear structures, nuclear reactions, superheavy elements and long-lived nuclear isomers.

Claimed discovery of unbibium On April 24, 2008, a group led by Marinov at Hebrew University of Jerusalem claimed to have found single atoms of unbibium-292 in natural thorium deposits at an abundance of 10−11 to 10−12 relative to thorium. The unbibium-292 atoms were claimed to be superdeformed or hyperdeformed nuclear isomers, with a half-life of at least 108 years.

A criticism of the technique, previously used in purportedly identifying lighter thorium isotopes by mass spectrometry, was published in Physical Review C in 2008. A rebuttal by the Marinov group was published in Physical Review C after the published comment.

A repeat of the thorium experiment using the superior method of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) failed to confirm the results, despite a 100-fold better sensitivity. This result throws considerable doubt on the results of the Marinov collaboration with regards to their claims of long-lived isotopes of thorium, and unbibium. It is still possible that traces of unbibium might exist in some thorium samples, though given current understanding of superheavy elements, this is very unlikely. Amnon Marinov died on December 7, 2011.