Recommendations for Monte Carlo nucleosynthesis sampling (Research Note)

Abstract

Context: Recent reaction rate evaluations include reaction rate uncertainties that have been determined in a statistically meaningful manner. Furthermore, reaction rate probability density distributions have been determined and published in the form of lognormal parameters with the specific goal of pursuing Monte Carlo nucleosynthesis studies. Aims: To test and assess different methods of randomly sampling over reaction rate probability densities and to determine the most accurate method for estimating elemental abundance uncertainties. Methods: Experimental Monte Carlo reaction rates are first computed for the 22Ne+alpha, 20Ne(p,g)21Na, 25Mg(p,g)26Al, and 18F(p,alpha)15O reactions, which are used to calculate reference nucleosynthesis yields for 16 nuclei affected by nucleosynthesis in massive stars and classical novae. Five different methods of randomly sampling over these reaction rate probability distributions are then developed, tested, and compared with the reference nucleosynthesis yields. Results: Given that the reaction rate probability density distributions can be described accurately with a lognormal distribution, Monte Carlo nucleosynthesis variations arising from the parametrised estimates for the reaction rate variations agree remarkably well with those obtained from the true rate samples. Most significantly, the most simple parametrisation agrees within just a few percent, meaning that Monte Carlo nucleosynthesis studies can be performed reliably using lognormal parametrisations of reaction rate probability density functions.

6 pages, 3 figures. Accepted to Astronomy & Astrophysics as a Research Note

References in corpus (3)

• The Effects of Variations in Nuclear Processes on Type I X-Ray Burst Nucleosynthesis
• The Effects of Thermonuclear Reaction-Rate Variations on 26Al Production in Massive Stars: a Sensitivity Study
• Reaction rates for the s-process neutron source 22Ne+α

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• STARLIB: A Next-Generation Reaction-Rate Library for Nuclear Astrophysics
• The Thermonuclear Runaway and the Classical Nova Outburst
• Properties of Carbon-Oxygen White Dwarfs From Monte Carlo Stellar Models
• Statistical Methods for Thermonuclear Reaction Rates and Nucleosynthesis Simulations
• Nuclear Mixing Meters for Classical Novae
• The Impact of Nuclear Reaction Rate Uncertainties On The Evolution of Core-Collapse Supernova Progenitors
• On Presolar Stardust Grains from CO Classical Novae
• Thermonuclear reaction rates and primordial nucleosynthesis
• Constraining nucleosynthesis in neutrino-driven winds: observations, simulations and nuclear physics
• Sensitivity to Thermonuclear Reaction Rates in Modeling the Abundance Anomalies of NGC 2419
• Exploring masses and CNO surface abundances of red giant stars
• Correlated Uncertainties in Monte Carlo Reaction Rate Calculations
• Correlated Energy Uncertainties in Reaction Rate Calculations