Related papers: The formation of the heaviest elements

About half of the heavy elements in the Solar System were created by rapid neutron capture, or r-process, nucleosynthesis. In the r-process, heavy elements are built up via a sequence of neutron captures and beta decays in which an intense…

The assembly of supermassive black holes poses a challenge primarily because of observed quasars at high redshift, but additionally because of the current lack of observations of intermediate mass black holes. One plausible scenario for…

There has been significant progress in the understanding of the r-process over the last ten years. The conditions required for this process have been examined in terms of the parameters for adiabatic expansion from high temperature and…

We investigate a class of universes in which the weak interaction is not in operation. We consider how astrophysical processes are altered in the absence of weak forces, including Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), galaxy formation, molecular…

Neutron stars -- compact objects with masses similar to that of our Sun but radii comparable to the size of a city -- contain the densest form of matter in the universe that can be probed in terrestrial laboratories as well as in earth- and…

At very large densities and/or temperatures a quark-hadron phase transition is expected to take place. Simulations of QCD on lattice at zero baryon density indicate that the transition occurs at $T_c \sim 150-170$ MeV. The calculations…

Atomic nuclei are transformed into each other in the cosmos by nuclear reactions inside stars: -- the process of nucleosynthesis. The basic concepts of determining nuclear reaction rates inside stars and how they manage to burn their fuel…

The astrophysical origin of the rapid neutron-capture process (r-process), which produces about half of the elements heavier than iron, remains uncertain. The oldest, most metal-poor stars preserve the chemical signatures of early…

Accurate relative abundances have been obtained for a sample of 21 mildly metal-poor stars from the analysis of high resolution and high signal-to-noise spectra. With these accurate results, correlations between relative abundances have…

After a brief history of neutron stars and supernovae recent developments are discussed. Based on modern nucleon-nucleon potentials more reliable equations of state for dense nuclear matter have been constructed. Furthermore, phase…

Neutron stars in mass-transferring binaries are accreting the hydrogen and helium rich matter from the surfaces of their companions. This article simply explains the physics associated with how that material eventually fuses to form heavier…

I discuss the recent progress in our understanding of nucleosynthesis via rapid neutron capture, the r-process, based on meteoritic data for the early solar system and observations of stars at low metallicities. At present, all data require…

Thanks to the long-term collaborations between nuclear and astrophysics, we have good understanding on the origin of elements in the universe, except for the elements around Ti and some neutron-capture elements. From the comparison between…

The chemical elements are created in nuclear fusion processes in the hot and dense cores of stars. The energy generated through nucleosynthesis allows stars to shine for billions of years. When these stars explode as massive supernovae, the…

Core collapse supernovae are dominated by energy transport from neutrinos. Therefore, some supernova properties could depend on symetries and features of the standard model weak interactions. The cross section for neutrino capture is larger…

We demonstrate that nucleosynthesis in rapid, high-entropy expansions of proton-rich matter from high temperature and density can result in a wider variety of abundance patterns than heretofore appreciated. In particular, such expansions…

The transition to quark matter can take place in neutron stars. The structure of a hybrid star, containing a core made of quark matter is discussed. The maximum mass of the non-rotating hybrid star turns out to be 1.6 M_s. Possible…

In rapid neutron capture, or r-process, nucleosynthesis, heavy elements are built up via a sequence of neutron captures and beta decays that involves thousands of nuclei far from stability. Though we understand the basics of how the…

We present the distributions of elemental abundance ratios using chemodynamical simulations which include four different neutron capture processes: magneto-rotational supernovae, neutron star mergers, neutrino driven winds, and electron…

Because of the tremendous densities that exist in the cores of neutron stars, a significant fraction of the matter in the cores of such stars is likely to exist in the form of hyperons. Depending on spin frequency, the hyperon content…