Theoretical description and predictions of the properties of superheavy nuclei

Theoretical descriptions of superheavy atomic nuclei are shortly reviewed and illustrated by their results. Such properties of these nuclei as their shapes, masses, fission barriers, decay modes, decay energies, half-lives, are discussed. Special attention is given to the shell structure of the nuclei, due to which they exist. The role of the physical studies of the superheavy nuclei for the chemical research on the superheavy elements and, more generally, the relationship between these two kinds of investigation is underlined. This stresses the importance of close cooperation between physicists and chemists, experimentalists and theoreticians, in these studies.