Nuclear correlations and the r-process

Abstract

We show that long-range correlations for nuclear masses have a significant effect on the synthesis of heavy elements by the r-process. As calculated by Delaroche et al. [1], these correlations suppress magic number effects associated with minor shells. This impacts the calculated abundances before the third r-process peak (at mass number A~195), where the abundances are low and form a trough. This trough and the position of the third abundance peak are strongly affected by the masses of nuclei in the transition region between deformed and spherical. Based on different astrophysical environments, our results demonstrate that a microscopic theory of nuclear masses including correlations naturally smoothens the separation energies, thus reducing the trough and improving the agreement with observed solar system abundances.

4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PRL

References in corpus (8)

• The r-process of stellar nucleosynthesis: Astrophysics and nuclear physics achievements and mysteries
• Further explorations of Skyrme-Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov mass formulas. XII: Stiffness and stability of neutron-star matter
• R-Process Nucleosynthesis in Dynamically Ejected Matter of Neutron Star Mergers
• Nucleosynthesis-relevant conditions in neutrino-driven supernova outflows. I. Spherically symmetric hydrodynamic simulations
• Dynamical r-process studies within the neutrino-driven wind scenario and its sensitivity to the nuclear physics input
• Formation Of The Rare Earth Peak: Gaining Insight Into Late-Time r-Process Dynamics
• Collectivity-induced quenching of signatures for shell closures
• Nucleosynthesis-relevant conditions in neutrino-driven supernova outflows. II. The reverse shock in two-dimensional simulations

Cited by in corpus (12)

• The impact of individual nuclear properties on $r$-process nucleosynthesis
• Neutrino-driven wind simulations and nucleosynthesis of heavy elements
• New precision mass measurements of neutron-rich calcium and potassium isotopes and three-nucleon forces
• Impact of nuclear mass uncertainties on the $r$-process
• Radial basis function approach in nuclear mass predictions
• Reexamining the temperature and neutron density conditions for r-process nucleosynthesis with augmented nuclear mass models
• Ground state octupole correlation energies with effective forces
• The link between rare earth peak formation and the astrophysical site of the $r$ process
• Quadrupole collectivity and shell closure in neutron-rich nuclei around $N=126$
• The R-Process Alliance: Exploring the cosmic scatter among ten r-process sites with stellar abundances
• Impact of nuclear masses on r-process nucleosynthesis: bulk properties versus shell effects
• The Rare Earth Peak : An Overlooked r-Process Diagnostic