Related papers: Neutron degeneracy and plasma physics effects on r…
At the low temperature and high density conditions of a neutron star crust neutrons are degenerate. In this work, we study the effect of this degeneracy on the capture rates of neutrons on neutron rich nuclei in accreted crusts. We use a…
The determination of astrophysical reaction rates requires different approaches depending on the conditions in hydrostatic and explosive burning. The focus here is on astrophysical reaction rates for radiative neutron capture reactions.…
The radiative neutron capture reaction rates have been studied at very low energies which are of interest for nuclear astrophysics. The rates for many of these reactions have remained independent of temperature so far. The temperature…
We consider two basic nuclear reactions: Radiative capture of neutrons by protons, $n+p\to \gamma+~d$ and its time-reversed counterpart, photodisintegration of the deuteron, $\gamma +d\to n+p$. In both of these cases we assume that the…
About half of the elements beyond iron are synthesized in stars by rapid-neutron capture process (r-process). The stellar environment provides very high neutron flux in a short time ($\sim$ seconds) which is conducive for the creation of…
In our calculation of neutron star crust heating we include several key new model features. In earlier work electron capture (EC) only allowed neutron emission from the daughter ground-state; here we calculate, in a deformed QRPA model, EC…
Cross-sections for capture reactions of charged particles in hot stellar matter turn out be increased by the quadrupole surface oscillations, if the corresponding phonon energies are of the order of the star temperature. The increase is…
Nuclear reactions heat and cool the crust of accreting neutron stars and need to be understood to interpret observations of X-ray bursts and of long-term cooling in transiently accreting systems. It was recently suggested that previously…
Understanding signals from neutron stars requires knowledge about the transport inside the star. We review the transport properties and the underlying reaction rates of dense hadronic and quark matter in the crust and the core of neutron…
Transitions of nuclear compositions in the crust of a neutron star induced by stellar spin-down are evaluated at zero temperature. We construct a compressible liquid-drop model for the energy of nuclei immersed in a neutron gas, including…
Type-I X-ray bursts can be used to determine properties of accreting neutron stars via comparisons between model calculations and astronomical observations, exploiting the sensitivity of models to astrophysical conditions. However, the…
I calculate the rate of electromagnetic scattering in degenerate and partially degenerate plasmas composed of electrons, muons, protons, and neutrons. Correlations with strong interactions, induced by the polarizability of…
Matter of subnuclear density in the inner crusts of neutron stars consists of neutron-rich atomic nuclei immersed in strongly degenerate relativistic gas of electrons and strongly nonideal liquid of neutrons. We give a brief account of…
The continued interest to the study of the radiative neutron capture on atomic nuclei is caused, on the one hand, by the important role of this process in the analysis of many fundamental properties of nuclei and nuclear reactions, and, on…
In dense astrophysical plasmas, neutron capture populates highly excited nuclear states close to the neutron threshold. The impact of additional low-energy nuclear excitations via coupling to the atomic shell on the ability of the so-formed…
We investigate the effects of plasma interactions on resonance-enhanced fusion rates in stars. Starting from basic principles we derive an expression for the fusion rate that can serve as a basis for discussion of approximation schemes. The…
We outline two important effects that are missing from most evaluations of the dark matter capture rate in neutron stars. As dark matter scattering with nucleons in the star involves large momentum transfer, nucleon structure must be taken…
A new general expression is derived for nuclear electron capture rates within dense plasmas. Its qualitative nature leads us to question some widely accepted assumptions about how to calculate the effects of the plasma on the rates. A…
Observed temperatures of transiently accreting neutron stars in the quiescent state are generally believed to be supported by deep crustal heating, associated with non-equilibrium exothermic reactions in the crust. Traditionally, these…
The roles of nuclear deformation and neutron transfer in sub-barrier capture process are studied within the quantum diffusion approach. The change of the deformations of colliding nuclei with neutron exchange can crucially influence the…