Impact of nuclear masses on r-process nucleosynthesis: bulk properties versus shell effects

Abstract

We investigate the impact of the model estimating the masses of exotic nuclei on r-process nucleosynthesis, assessing the dependence of the abundance distribution on the specific properties of nuclear masses. By decomposing theoretical nuclear mass predictions into a liquid-drop parametrization and local shell effects, we show that r-process abundances are virtually insensitive to large variations of the masses which originate from nuclear bulk properties of the model, such as the symmetry energy. In contrast, the mass component associated with local shell effects is the main driver of r-process abundance variations, despite its relatively minor contribution to the absolute value of neutron separation energies. Our work suggests that experimental and theoretical studies of masses devoted to r-process applications, such as the nucleosynthesis in the ejecta of neutron star mergers, should focus on the physical origin and determination of local changes in mass trends.

9 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (10)

• GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
• Multi-messenger Observations of a Binary Neutron Star Merger
• The Combined Ultraviolet, Optical, and Near-Infrared Light Curves of the Kilonova Associated with the Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817: Unified Data Set, Analytic Models, and Physical Implications
• Further explorations of Skyrme-Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov mass formulas. XII: Stiffness and stability of neutron-star matter
• Nuclear mass predictions based on Bayesian neural network approach with pairing and shell effects
• Current Status of r-Process Nucleosynthesis
• Further improvements on a global nuclear mass model
• Dynamical r-process studies within the neutrino-driven wind scenario and its sensitivity to the nuclear physics input
• 3D radiative transfer kilonova modelling for binary neutron star merger simulations
• Impact of systematic nuclear uncertainties on composition and decay heat of dynamical and disk ejecta in compact binary mergers