Related papers: Maria Goeppert Mayer's Theoretical Work on Rare-Ea…
The primary astrophysical source of the rare earth elements is the rapid neutron capture process ($r$ process). The rare earth peak that is seen in the solar $r$-process residuals has been proposed to originate as a pile-up of nuclei during…
Understanding where elements were formed has been a key goal in astrophysics for nearly a century, with answers involving cosmology, stellar burning, and cosmic explosions. Since 1957, the origin of the heaviest elements (formed via the…
We describe an ab-initio disordered local moment theory for long period magnetic phases and investigate the temperature and magnetic field dependence of the magnetic states in the heavy rare earth elements (HRE), namely paramagnetic,…
In this chapter we focus first on the theoretical methods and relevant computational approaches to calculate the electronic structure of atoms, molecules, and clusters containing heavy elements for which relativistic effects become…
Long-lived radioactive nuclides, such as $^{40}$K, $^{232}$Th, $^{235}$U and $^{238}$U, contribute to persistent heat production in the mantle of terrestrial-type planets. As refractory elements, the concentrations of Th and U in a…
Chemical and physical Earth models agree little as to the radioactive power of the planet. Each predicts a range of radioactive powers, overlapping slightly with the other at about 24 TW, and together spanning 14-46 TW. Approximately 20 %…
Thomas-Fermi theory is developed to evaluate nuclear matrix elements averaged on the energy shell, on the basis of independent particle Hamiltonians. One- and two-body matrix elements are compared with the quantal results and it is…
By combining ab-initio electron theory and statistical mechanics, the physical properties of the ternary intermetallic system Ni-Fe-Al in the ground state and at finite temperatures were investigated. The Ni-Fe-Al system is not only of high…
The heavy and superheavy elements of the periodic table predominately disintegrate by {\alpha}-decay, facilitating transitions mainly between ground states and occasionally involving isomeric states. This study focuses on estimating the…
We give for the first time, theoretical estimates of unknown rare electron-capture (EC) decay branchings of $^{44}$Ti, $^{57}$Co, and $^{139}$Ce, relevant for searches of (exotic) dark-matter particles. The nuclear-structure calculations…
The structure of superheavy elements newly discovered in the $^{208}$Pb($^{86}$Kr,n) reaction at Berkeley is systematically studied in the Relativistic Mean Field (RMF) approach. It is shown that various usually employed RMF forces, which…
With the discovery of evidence for neutrino mass, a vivid gamma ray sky at multi-TeV energies, and cosmic ray particles with unexpectedly high energies, astroparticle physics currently runs through an era of rapid progress and moving…
The presence of certain elements within a star, and by extension its planet, strongly impacts the formation and evolution of the planetary system. The positive correlation between a host star's iron-content and the presence of an orbiting…
In principle, the combined measurements of the mass and radius a giant exoplanet allow one to determine the relative fraction of hydrogen and helium and of heavy elements in the planet. However, uncertainties on the underlying physics imply…
Thin film magnetic heterostructures with competing interfacial coupling and Zeeman energy pro- vide a fertile ground to study phase transition between different equilibrium states as a function of external magnetic field and temperature. A…
Two models are presented for the description of the electron screening effects that appear in laboratory nuclear reactions at astrophysical energies. The two-electron screening energy of the first model agrees very well with the recent LUNA…
To better characterize the abundance patterns produced by the r-process, we have derived new abundances or upper limits for the heavy elements zinc (Zn), yttrium (Y), lanthanum (La), europium (Eu), and lead (Pb). Our sample of 161…
We study a new field theory effect in the cosmological context in the Two Measures Field Theory (TMT). TMT is an alternative gravity and matter field theory where the gravitational interaction of fermionic matter is reduced to that of…
A systematic study of the ground-state properties of even-even rare earth nuclei has been performed in the framework of the Relativistic Mean-Field (RMF) theory using the parameter set NL-SH. Nuclear radii, isotope shifts and deformation…
Short-period super-Earths and mini-Neptunes encircle more than $\sim50\%$ of Sun-like stars and are relatively amenable to direct observational characterization. Despite this, environments in which these planets accrete are difficult to…