Related papers: What we do and do not know about the s-process
We discuss the synthesis of some short-lived isotopes and of 23Na in thermally pulsing AGB stars with initial mass of 2 Msun and two different metallicities (Z=1.5e-2, corresponding to the metal amount in the Sun, and Z=1e-4),…
S-type AGB stars are thought to be in the transitional phase between M-type and C-type AGB stars. Because of their peculiar chemical composition, one may expect a strong influence of the stellar C/O ratio on the molecular chemistry and the…
Barium stars are extrinsic Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars. They present the s-enhancement characteristic for AGB and post-AGB stars, but are in an earlier evolutionary stage (main sequence dwarfs, subgiants, red giants). They are…
Stars of intermediate mass (~4-8Msun) evolve to the stage of white dwarfs through the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stage: stationary hydrogen shell burning and helium thermal pulses, wind mass loss and planetary nebula ejection. Almost the…
We investigated the impact of uncertainties in neutron-capture and weak reactions (on heavy elements) on the s-process nucleosynthesis in low-mass stars and massive stars using a Monte-Carlo based approach. We performed extensive nuclear…
The neutron capture cross section of the unstable s-process branching nucleus 185W has been derived from experimental data of the inverse 186W(g,n)185W photodisintegration taken with monochromatic photon beams from laser Compton scattering.…
The r-process involves neutron-rich nuclei far off stability for which no experimental cross sections are known. Therefore, one has to rely on theory. The difficulties in the predictions are briefly addressed. To investigate the impact of…
The recently improved information on the stellar neutron capture cross sections of neutron magic nuclei at N = 82, and in particular for 142^Nd, turned out to represent a sensitive test for models of s-process nucleosynthesis. While these…
The r-process involves neutron-rich nuclei far off stability for which no experimental cross sections are known. Therefore, one has to rely on theory which might be prone to considerable uncertainties far off stability. To investigate the…
Asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars are considered to be among the most significant contributors to the fluorine budget in our Galaxy. While at close-to-solar metallicity observations and theory agree, at lower metallicities stellar models…
We present nucleosynthesis predictions for massive (5-7 solar masses) asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars of solar metallicity where we delay the onset of the superwind to pulsation periods of P =700-800 days. We found that delaying the…
We present the first evolutionary models of intermediate mass stars up to their thermal pulses which include effects of rotation on the stellar structure as well as rotationally induced mixing of chemical species and angular momentum. We…
We present nucleosynthesis calculations and the resulting 19F stellar yields for a large set of models with different masses and metallicity. We find that the production of fluorine depends on the temperature of the convective pulses, the…
Roughly half of the heavy elements (atomic mass greater than that of iron) are believed to be synthesized in the late evolutionary stages of stars with masses between 0.8 and 8 solar masses. Deep inside the star, nuclei (mainly iron)…
Neutron-capture elements, those with Z > 35, are the least well-understood in terms of nucleosynthesis and formation environments. The rapid neutron-capture, or r-process, elements are formed in the environments and/or remnants of massive…
The origin of carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars plays a key role in characterising the formation and evolution of the first stars and the Galaxy since the extremely-poor (EMP) stars with [Fe/H] \leq -2.5 share the common features of…
Planetary nebulae retain the signature of the nucleosynthesis and mixing events that occurred during the previous AGB phase. Observational signatures complement observations of AGB and post-AGB stars and their binary companions. The…
A new, general formalism to include experimental data in revised stellar rates is discussed, containing revised uncertainties. Application to the s-process shows that the actual uncertainties in the neutron capture rates can be larger than…
Carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars in the Galactic halo have a wide range of neutron-capture element abundance patterns. To identify their origin, we investigated three modes of $s$-process nucleosynthesis that have been proposed to…
We present barium, carbon, and silicon isotopic compositions of 38 acid-cleaned presolar SiC grains from Murchison. Comparison with previous data shows that acid washing is highly effective in removing barium contamination. Strong…