Actinide crystallization and fission reactions in cooling white dwarf stars
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
2021-04-07 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Nuclear Theory
Abstract
The first solids that form as a cooling white dwarf (WD) starts to crystallize are expected to be greatly enriched in actinides. This is because the melting points of WD matter scale as and actinides have the largest charge . We estimate that the solids may be so enriched in actinides that they could support a fission chain reaction. This reaction could ignite carbon burning and lead to the explosion of an isolated WD in a thermonuclear supernova (SN Ia). Our mechanism could potentially explain SN Ia with sub-Chandrasekhar ejecta masses and short delay times.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2103.02122,
title = {Actinide crystallization and fission reactions in cooling white dwarf stars},
author = {C. J. Horowitz and M. E. Caplan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2103.02122},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
8 pages, 6 figures total including Appendix, Phys. Rev. Let. in press