Propagation of Statistical Uncertainties of Skyrme Mass Models to Simulations of $r$-Process Nucleosynthesis

Abstract

Uncertainties in nuclear models have a major impact on simulations that aim at understanding the origin of heavy elements in the universe through the rapid neutron capture process ($r$ process) of nucleosynthesis. Within the framework of the nuclear density functional theory, we use results of Bayesian statistical analysis to propagate uncertainties in the parameters of energy density functionals to the predicted $r$-process abundance pattern, by way not only of the nuclear masses but also through the influence of the masses on $\beta$-decay and neutron capture rates. We additionally make the first identifications of specific parameters of Skyrme-like energy density functionals which are correlated with particular aspects of the $r$-process abundance pattern. While previous studies have explored the reduction in the abundance pattern uncertainties due to anticipated new measurements of neutron-rich nuclei, here we point out that an even larger reduction will occur when these new measurements are used to reduce the uncertainty of model predictions of masses, which are then propagated through to the abundance pattern. We make a quantitative prediction for how large this reduction will be.

7 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (19)

• GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
• The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/VIRGO GW170817. II. UV, Optical, and Near-IR Light Curves and Comparison to Kilonova Models
• The r-process of stellar nucleosynthesis: Astrophysics and nuclear physics achievements and mysteries
• Comprehensive nucleosynthesis analysis for ejecta of compact binary mergers
• Further explorations of Skyrme-Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov mass formulas. XII: Stiffness and stability of neutron-star matter
• Nucleosynthesis-relevant conditions in neutrino-driven supernova outflows. I. Spherically symmetric hydrodynamic simulations
• Axially deformed solution of the Skyrme-Hartree-Fock-Bogolyubov equations using the transformed harmonic oscillator basis (II) HFBTHO v2.00d: a new version of the program
• Further improvements on a global nuclear mass model
• Bayesian approach to model-based extrapolation of nuclear observables
• Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Density Functional Theory and Information Content of New Measurements
• Fission Dynamics of 240Pu from Saddle-to-Scission and Beyond
• $\beta$-delayed fission in $r$-process nucleosynthesis
• Actinide Production in Neutron-Rich Ejecta of a Neutron Star Merger
• Neutron-gamma competition for $\beta$-delayed neutron emission
• Precision mass measurements on neutron-rich rare-earth isotopes at JYFLTRAP - reduced neutron pairing and implications for the $r$-process calculations
• Estimation of M1 scissors mode strength for deformed nuclei in the medium to heavy mass region by statistical Hauser-Feshbach model calculations
• Storage ring mass spectrometry for nuclear structure and astrophysics research
• A Bayesian Approach for Parameter Estimation and Prediction using a Computationally Intensive Model
• Reverse engineering nuclear properties from rare earth abundances in the $r$ process

Cited by in corpus (28)

• Machine Learning in Nuclear Physics
• Quantified limits of the nuclear landscape
• Full Transport General Relativistic Radiation Magnetohydrodynamics for Nucleosynthesis in Collapsars
• Astromers: Nuclear Isomers in Astrophysics
• Physically Interpretable Machine Learning for nuclear masses
• Nucleosynthesis and observation of the heaviest elements
• Element abundance patterns in stars indicate fission of nuclei heavier than uranium
• Statistical aspects of nuclear mass models
• Actinide opacities for modeling the spectra and light curves of kilonovae
• Following nuclei through nucleosynthesis: a novel tracing technique
• First application of mass measurement with the Rare-RI Ring reveals the solar r-process abundance trend at A=122 and A=123
• Sensitivity study of \emph{r}-process abundances to nuclear masses
• The Influence of Beta Decay Rates on r-Process Observables
• Impact of systematic nuclear uncertainties on composition and decay heat of dynamical and disk ejecta in compact binary mergers
• Markov Chain Monte Carlo Predictions of Neutron-rich Lanthanide Properties as a Probe of $r$-process Dynamics
• Nuclear mass predictions based on convolutional neural network
• Reconstructing Masses of Merging Neutron Stars from Stellar $R$-Process Abundance Signatures
• Isochronic evolution and the radioactive decay of r-process nuclei
• Correlations between nuclear landscape boundaries and neutron-rich r-process abundances
• Optimized nuclear energy density functionals including long-range pion contributions
• Comparing different density-matrix expansions for long-range pion exchange
• The impact of mass uncertainties on the r-process nucleosynthesis in neutron star mergers
• Shell quenching in nuclear charge radii based on Monte Carlo dropout Bayesian neural network
• Report from the A.I. For Nuclear Physics Workshop
• Bayesian model mixing with multi-reference energy density functional
• Nuclear data activities for medium mass and heavy nuclei at Los Alamos
• Statistical framework for nuclear parameter uncertainties in nucleosynthesis modeling of r- and i-process
• Impact of nuclear masses on r-process nucleosynthesis: bulk properties versus shell effects