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In critical or nearly critical heavy-ion collisions, induced as well as spontaneous energyless e-e+ pair creation result in the decay of the neutral vacuum. Induced transitions from the negative-energy continuum into a vacant molecular 1s level can occur even in the absence of diving and produce a substantial enhancement and broadening of the previously considered spontaneous positron spectrum. Total cross sections of 5 b have been calculated for U-U collisions.
The 1s bound state of superheavy atoms and molecules reaches a binding energy of -2mc2 at Z≈169. It is shown that the K shell is still localized in r space even beyond this critical proton number and that it has a width Γ (several keV large) which is a positron escape width for ionized K shells. The suggestion is made that this effect can be observed in the collision of very heavy ions (superheavy molecules) during the collision.