Fission in the $r$-process

ASW2018 Vancouver, Canada

Invited presentation on 07/2018

Last August marked the first observation of gravitational waves and electromagnetic signals from the merging of two neutron stars sending ripples through the astrophysics, atomic physics, nuclear physics and gravitational wave communities. In some components of neutron star merger ejecta fission is thought to re-cycle the material and impact the abundances. I will focus the talk on the sensitivity of the r-process to theoretical calculations of fission, in particular, the treatment of neutron-induced fission, beta-delayed fission and fission yields. The production of the heavy actinide Californium-254 will be discussed along with its impact on observational signatures of kilonovae.

LA-UR-18-26590

Related Publications

Year	Authors	Title (Click for more details)	Journal (PDF)
2019	N. Vassh, R. Vogt, R. Surman, J. Randrup, et al.	Using excitation-energy dependent fission yields to identify key fissioning nuclei in r-process nucleosynthesis	J. Phys. G 46 065202
2018	M. Mumpower, T. Kawano, T. M. Sprouse, N. Vassh, et al.	$\beta$-delayed fission in $r$-process nucleosynthesis	ApJ 869 1
2018	Y. Zhu, R. T. Wollaeger, N. Vassh, R. Surman, et al.	Californium-254 and kilonova light curves	ApJL 863 2
2018	B. Côtè, C. L. Fryer, K. Belczynski, O. Korobkin, et al.	The origin of r-process elements in the Milky Way	ApJ 855 2