Related papers: Cosmic nucleosynthesis: a multi-messenger challeng…
Over the past century, rooted in the theory of general relativity, cosmology has developed a very successful physical model of the universe: the {\em big-bang model}. Its construction followed different stages to incorporate nuclear…
There are at least three sources of cosmic quarks in the universe. One, the quark nuggets which may survive beyond a certain baryon number during the phase transition from quarks to hadrons microseconds after the big bang. These quark…
Primordial nucleosynthesis is rightly hailed as one of the great successes of the standard cosmological model. Here we consider the initial forging of elements in the recently proposed Rh = ct universe, a cosmology that demands linear…
The chemical abundances of metal-poor stars provide a great deal of information regarding the individual nucleosynthetic processes that created the observed elements and the overall process of chemical enrichment of the galaxy since the…
Cosmogenic neutrinos originate from interactions of cosmic rays propagating through the universe with cosmic background photons. Since both high-energy cosmic rays and cosmic background photons exist, the existence of high-energy cosmogenic…
The unknown state of matter at ultra-high density, large proton/neutron number asymmetry, and low temperature is a major long-standing problem in modern physics. Neutron stars provide the only known setting in the Universe where matter in…
Understanding dense matter under extreme conditions is one of the most fundamental puzzles in modern physics. Complex interactions give rise to emergent, collective phenomena. While nuclear experiments and Earth - based colliders provide…
The emergence of cosmic structure is commonly considered one of the most complex phenomena in Nature. However, this complexity has never been defined nor measured in a quantitative and objective way. In this work we propose a method to…
The census of heavy elements (metals) produced by all stars through cosmic times up to present-day is limited to ~50%; of these only half are still found within their parent galaxy. The majority of metals is expelled from galaxies into the…
Big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies independently predict the universal baryon density. Comparing their predictions will provide a fundamental test on cosmology. Using BBN and the CMB…
Very different processes characterize the decoupling of neutrinos to form the cosmic neutrino background (C$\nu$B) and the much later decoupling of photons from thermal equilibrium to form the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The C$\nu$B…
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…
Cool, evolved stars are the main source of chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium (ISM), and understanding their mass loss and structure offers a unique opportunity to study the cycle of matter in the Universe. Pulsation,…
Interpreting high-energy, astrophysical phenomena, such as supernova explosions or neutron-star collisions, requires a robust understanding of matter at supranuclear densities. However, our knowledge about dense matter explored in the cores…
During its early evolution, the hot, dense Universe provided a laboratory for probing fundamental physics at high energies. By studying the relics from those early epochs, such as the light elements synthesized during primordial…
Astronomical observations and analysis of stardust isolated from meteorites have revealed a highly diverse interstellar and circumstellar grain inventory, including a wide range of amorphous materials and crystalline compounds (silicates…
Repulsive interactions between neutrons in compact stellar cores cause luminosity and a steady outflow of hydrogen from stellar surfaces. Neutron repulsion in more massive compact objects made by gravitational collapse produces violent,…
In this lecture, we give a first introduction to neutron stars, based on fundamental physical principles. After outlining their amazing macroscopic properties, as obtained from observations, we infer the extreme conditions of matter in…
The chemical evolution of the Universe is governed by the chemical yields from stars, which in turn is determined primarily by the initial stellar mass. Even stars as low as 0.9Msun can, at low metallicity, contribute to the chemical…
The hot dense environment of the early universe is known to have produced large numbers of baryons, photons, and neutrinos. These extreme conditions may have also produced other long-lived species, including new light particles (such as…