Related papers: The RADIOSTAR Project
In order to study the processes creating intermediate and heavy nuclei in massive stars it is necessary to provide neutron capture cross sections and reaction rates close to stability and for moderately unstable neutron-rich nuclei.…
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…
The nature of the first generation of stars in the Universe remains largely unknown. Observations imply the existence of massive primordial stars early in the history of the universe, and the standard theory for the growth of cosmic…
The astrophysical sites where r-process elements are synthesized remain mysterious: it is clear that neutron star mergers (kilonovae (KNe)) contribute, and some classes of core-collapse supernovae (SNe) are also likely sources of at least…
The early Solar System contained short-lived radionuclides such as 60Fe (t1/2 = 1.5 Myr) whose most likely source was a nearby supernova. Previous models of Solar System formation considered a supernova shock that triggered the collapse of…
For decades we have known that the Sun lies within the Local Bubble, a cavity of low-density, high-temperature plasma surrounded by a shell of cold, neutral gas and dust. However, the precise shape and extent of this shell, the impetus and…
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…
The solar system started to form about 4.56 Gyr ago and despite the long intervening time span, there still exist several clues about its formation. The three major sources for this information are meteorites, the present solar system…
In this work we compute the rates and numbers of different types of stars and phenomena (supernovae, novae, white dwarfs, merging neutron stars, black holes) that contributed to the chemical composition of the Solar System. This process is…
We review recent advances in the analytical and numerical modeling of the star formation rate in molecular clouds and discuss the available observational constraints. We focus on molecular clouds as the fundamental star formation sites,…
Produced by the interaction between the ``pulsar wind'' powered by the rotational energy of a neutron star and its surroundings, the study of pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) provides vital insight into the physics of neutron star magnetospheres…
Recent progress in the understanding of star formation is summarized. A consistent picture is emerging where molecular clouds form with turbulent velocity fields and clumpy substructure, imprinted already during their formation. The clouds…
Radioactive nuclei with lifetimes on the order of millions of years can reveal the formation history of the Sun and active nucleosynthesis occurring at the time and place of its birth. Among such nuclei whose decay signatures are found in…
The presence and abundance of the short-lived radioisotopes (SLRs) $^{26}$Al and $^{60}$Fe during the formation of the Solar System is difficult to explain unless the Sun formed in the vicinity of one or more massive star(s) that exploded…
A critical constraint on solar system formation is the high $^{26}$Al/$^{27}$Al abundance ratio of 5 $\times 10^{-5}$ at the time of formation, which was about 17 times higher than the average Galactic ratio, while the $^{60}$Fe/$^{56}$Fe…
The evolution of radiation emitted during the dynamical collapse of metal-free protostellar clouds is investigated within a spherically symmetric hydrodynamical scheme that includes the transfer of radiation and the chemistry of the…
One of the outstanding unsolved riddles of nuclear astrophysics is the origin of the so called ``p-process'' nuclei from A = 92 to 126. Both the lighter and heavier p-process nuclei are adequately produced in the neon and oxygen shells of…
Star formation is slow, in the sense that the gas consumption time is much longer than the dynamical time. It is also inefficient; essentially all star formation in local galaxies takes place in giant molecular clouds (GMCs), but the…
The nuclear disc is a dense stellar structure at the centre of the Milky Way, with a radius of $\sim$150 pc. It has been a place of intense star formation in the past several tens of millions of years but its overall formation history has…
Neutrinos are elementary particles which are known since many years as fundamental messengers from the interior of the Sun. The Standard Solar Model, which gives a theoretical description of all nuclear processes which happen in our star,…