Related papers: R-Process Freezeout, Nuclear Deformation, and the …
In the abundance spectrum of r-process nuclei the most prominent features are the peaks that form when the r-process flow passes through the closed neutron shells. However, there are also other features in the abundance spectrum that can…
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 rapid neutron-capture process, or r-process, is known to be fundamental for explaining the origin of approximately half of the A>60 stable nuclei observed in nature. In recent years nuclear astrophysicists have developed more and more…
The r-process constitutes one of the major challenges in nuclear astrophysics. Its astrophysical site has not yet been identified but there is observational evidence suggesting that at least two possible sites should contribute to the solar…
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…
Although the rapid neutron-capture process, or r-process, is fundamentally important for explaining the origin of approximately half of the stable nuclei with A > 60, the astrophysical site of this process has not been identified yet. Here…
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…
We study the formation and final structure of the rare earth peak ($A\sim160$) of the $r$-process nucleosynthesis. The rare earth peak forms at late times in the $r$-process after neutron exhaustion (neutron-to-seed ratio unity or R=1) as…
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…
The identification of the astrophysical site and the specific conditions in which r-process nucleosynthesis takes place remain unsolved mysteries of astrophysics. The present paper emphasizes some important future challenges faced by…
Heavy elements are synthesized by the r-process in neutron star mergers and potentially in rare supernovae linked to strong magnetic fields. Expensive hydrodynamic simulations of these extreme environments are usually post-processed to…
The conditions for the leading r-process site candidate, neutrino-driven winds, can not be reproduced self-consistently in current supernova models. For that reason, we investigate an alternate model involving the mass ejected by fallback…
The rapid neutron nucleosynthesis process involves an enormous amount of very exotic neutron-rich nuclei, which represent a theoretical and experimental challenge. Two of the main decay properties that affect the final abundance…
Our understanding of the origin of heavy elements beyond iron relies on the rapid neutron capture process (r-process), which accounts for roughly half of their cosmic abundance. However, the extreme neutron-rich conditions required for the…
We explore heavy-element nucleosynthesis by rapid neutron capture (r-process) in the decompressing ejecta from the surface of a neutron star. The decompression is triggered by a violent phase transition to strange quark matter (quark-nova…
We present a new nucleosynthesis process that may take place on neutron-rich ejecta experiencing an intensive neutrino flux. The nucleosynthesis proceeds similarly to the standard $r$-process, a sequence of neutron-captures and beta-decays,…
The primary astrophysical source of the rare earth elements is the rapid neutron capture process ($r$ process). The rare earth peak that is seen in the solar $r$-process residuals has been proposed to originate as a pile-up of nuclei during…
The bulk of the rare earth elements are believed to be synthesized in the rapid neutron capture process or $r$ process of nucleosynthesis. The solar $r$-process residuals show a small peak in the rare earths around $A\sim 160$, which is…
Simulations of r-process nucleosynthesis require nuclear physics information for thousands of neutron-rich nuclear species from the line of stability to the neutron drip line. While arguably the most important pieces of nuclear data for the…
Several circumstantial arguments point to the formation of the third r-process peak at A about 190, near platinum, in stars of mass of about 8-10 solar masses: 1) The delayed production of europium with respect to iron imposes a time scale…