New Thermonuclear 10B(α,p)13C Rate and Its Astrophysical Implication in the νp-process

Abstract

Abstract We have derived a new thermonuclear rate with an associated uncertainty for the 10B(α,p)13C reaction by evaluating the available experimental data for the first time. We provide this rate with a much smaller uncertainty than that estimated in the literature. Our rate differs significantly from the theoretical rates adopted in the current reaction rate libraries. Utilizing this new rate, we have investigated its astrophysical implications on the heavy-element (especially, p-nuclei) production in the νp-process in a stellar model of the neutrino-driven wind of type II core-collapse supernova. It shows that our rate with a much smaller uncertainty strongly constrains the nucleosynthetic results of the light p-nulcei with A ∼ 80–100. In addition, it shows that the difference between observed and predicted abundances for light p-nuclei is quite large, implying either that the present stellar model still needs modification or that additional astrophysical sources are required to account for the origin of some p-nuclei, such as 92Mo and 94Mo.