Nuclear Structure and Setting Constraints on the r-process?

Abstract

One of the open questions in all of physics today has to do with the site of the r-process. There are uncertainties associated with the astrophysics, the observations, and the physics of nuclei far from stability. This paper uses existing nuclear physics models and their implied properties for nuclei far from stability to determine the nuclei that have the greatest impact on a given astrophysical scenario. The properties considered are nuclear masses, beta- decay rates, and neutron capture rates individually as well as in a correlated way to identify the most important nuclei in a given r-process trajectory. The ultimate goal is to set some constraints on potential sites of the r-process based on the nuclear properties.